Transcript
Conor Fowler: Welcome here to our show Apocalypse Duds. where three people who probably should be doing something better talk about clothing for about an hour. This week, we have the honor of hosting Dr. Henrik S. Vilberg.
Conor Fowler: Recently in the New York Times, of the substack, Why We Remain in the Provinces, which we'll get to why we remain in the provinces. ah in a bit. ah He speaks many more languages than me and Maddie combined. He knows a ton about vintage and surplus. He's a dad.
Conor Fowler: He's here. Well, actually he's there, but we'll let. Him. tell you about that. Welcome to the show.
Henrik S Wilberg: Thank you. Nice to be back.
matty: Yeah, yeah, it's been it's been a while.
Conor Fowler: Mm -hmm.
matty: uh Bye. Connor and I are are constantly talking about. you know. Like, oh, we had this person on, like... Not that long ago, and then we look back and it's like oh that was that was a year and a half So.
Conor Fowler: Yeah. And so much has changed, I mean...
matty: Right.
Conor Fowler: um So just just now, before, we were talking about... ah Your piece in the Times. ah the death of American cool. So...
Conor Fowler: I don't know. Now that you're like... i saw i mean i said you're an expat again kind of right like you're not in america Longing for America.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, I mean, I guess I didn't see I guess it's of course it is only when you when you leave that you realize the extent to which you're bound to a place, right? And that's...
Henrik S Wilberg: So I discovered to my, I mean, I had an inkling, of course. But.
Conor Fowler: Because that's what your bio...
Henrik S Wilberg: discovered just how
Conor Fowler: and instagram says right uh i like america and they like me
Henrik S Wilberg: That's right. I mean, yeah, that that is a citation from somewhere, but it's like a... It is a... It is a... And... It is odd to sort of digest that sort of awe after after being away.
Henrik S Wilberg: It's been like two years since I was in the States now.
Conor Fowler: Well, what was the citizenship process like?
Henrik S Wilberg: a little over two years to the day.
matty: okay
Conor Fowler: I mean... brief I mean, briefly.
Henrik S Wilberg: Peace. Easy.
Conor Fowler: Well, I'm sure it was easy for you, but like.
Henrik S Wilberg: i remember I remember because i I remember the last time I recorded the podcast was the day I became a citizen.
matty: Right Right, right.
Conor Fowler: That's right. That's right.
matty: That's right. Wow!
Henrik S Wilberg: and the day And the day before I became a father.
matty: Right, yeah, yeah
Conor Fowler: that's so fucking funny.
Henrik S Wilberg: this is
Conor Fowler: Cause you were like,
matty: ah
Conor Fowler: Maybe I could do it from the hospital.
Henrik S Wilberg: I know, it was that but I knew it was it was ah it was scheduled, but we didn't also didn't... entirely no.
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: But yeah, it was... um that everything would be fine so it was uh Best to get it out of the way. So that was the my last the last thing I did as a... before fatherhood was to record the first the first.
matty: Well, we are honored that ah you you took time out of this ridiculous...
Henrik S Wilberg: would you
matty: situation to sit with us for a fucking hour.
Henrik S Wilberg: yeah Yeah, that was nice. um No, no, so but the solution, I mean, that that has been... complicated many times like the horror stories of the past year so none of that was even on the horizon then so um But of course...
matty: Yeah. See you.
Henrik S Wilberg: if you had had i been like looking back now, if I had been through the process. under Trump too, like and that things could have gotten very ugly very very easily.
Conor Fowler: Yeah, that's what I mean.
matty: Right.
Conor Fowler: I mean, ah because what we're seeing here, like in Baltimore, at least, is like. PhDs from Hopkins being detained by ICE. And I saw today. the insane headline that They're giving them gloves. with electric shock.
matty: Oh yeah, I saw that this morning.
Conor Fowler: capabilities.
matty: That was that was a great thing to wake up to.
Henrik S Wilberg: See you.
Conor Fowler: I don't like that
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, I mean there there are there is like yeah, I know there are Um... Uh, like phd
Henrik S Wilberg: tenure track faculty who are in detention centers right now. It's true. uh
Conor Fowler: Right.
matty: Yeah, which Which probably bodes well for the future.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um... Yeah.
matty: you know, just. I'm sure this is the thing that's going to be great down the line.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, it's hard to undo that one. know in the These things unravel very quickly and it's going to take a long time to repair this.
matty: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: In terms of...
matty: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: ah the i don't think people are aware the extent of how like a regular American University runs on basically foreign grad students.
matty: Oh, totally.
Henrik S Wilberg: Take care. take a walk down any
Conor Fowler: Oh my gosh.
Henrik S Wilberg: go to your like statistics or computer science department at your closest state like marriage yeah like um maryland state or something
Conor Fowler: UMBC, Maryland.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yep.
Conor Fowler: whatever, Towson, all of those schools, they run on students from New Jersey.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah. Yep.
Conor Fowler: and students from way far outside of New Jersey. um
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, but everyone's doing the teaching on those places everyone is doing like the core grunt work of
Conor Fowler: Mm -hmm.
Henrik S Wilberg: of knowledge transmission. Those guys are from like... Turkey, Iran.
Henrik S Wilberg: And they're, you know... They're the ones who are doing this. America does not reproduce its own knowledge. workers at that level.
Conor Fowler: Wow.
Henrik S Wilberg: If they're American, they go to work in like...
Conor Fowler: Wow.
Henrik S Wilberg: Silicon Valley, whatever, but like the teaching is done. primarily by Bye. These guys who... don't see their families for like four or five six years because If you're like Iranian or whatever.
Henrik S Wilberg: you don't You don't go back because you don't know what's going to happen to you if you do. uh if you try to come back so i know several friends and colleagues who already under the old regime sort of lived in their in this kind of exceptional situation where they never saw their loved ones.
Henrik S Wilberg: Until there. until they were
Conor Fowler: wow
Henrik S Wilberg: until they had like a fixed thing, but And now of course things are very much in crisis, but those people can turn. to very few. Uh... outlets to make their make their opinions known. and it's I don't know what that would have been like.
Conor Fowler: Of course. Heh.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um...
Conor Fowler: My friend is Australian. who you would figure like Would be like fine but He's considering like moving back to Australia. He has a PhD from Hopkins. I mean, he just graduated.
Conor Fowler: He's very well regarded and well liked. And it's like. uh
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: He's with his husband. And so he's like. I think we probably should just move back to Australia. which i don't think he was ever ever considering before like even this year
Henrik S Wilberg: And.
Henrik S Wilberg: No, it will take a long time for that to sort of be... corrected. Because it's it's now established that there are no protections short of citizenship, which is why I did it in the first place.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
matty: and ah When did you start?
Henrik S Wilberg: I knew that. I saw that coming.
matty: What did you did you start that process under Trump 1 .0?
Henrik S Wilberg: I don't remember. um I must have, right? Um,
matty: I don't know how long the...
Henrik S Wilberg: Well, I tried to remember
Conor Fowler: Yeah, I don't know how long it takes
matty: how long the actual process takes.
Henrik S Wilberg: No, the green card, five but the the citizenship process is quick.
matty: Okay. got you Gotcha, gotcha.
Henrik S Wilberg: At least under the old regime, the citizen thing is quick. Uh... It's quicker than renewing a green card. Just kind of, uh... legal advice for everybody this is immigrant this is not immigration legal advice but
matty: ah
matty: No, no, of course
Henrik S Wilberg: um there is like a fundamental ignorance of how the immigration system worked prior to this but also how it works now
Conor Fowler: Well, and it's it's this is an interesting point, too, because, like...
Henrik S Wilberg: And now you don't know.
Conor Fowler: What American gives a fuck about the intricacies of the immigration system? Like no American citizen has a clue. And what what is reported over and over and over again is that.
Conor Fowler: almost every American citizen would fail the citizenship test.
matty: ye
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, it was a fail test.
Conor Fowler: like How many branches how many branches of of the American government are there?
Henrik S Wilberg: Yes, yes, yes, but then also of course... ah then he comes out that like half the ice agents who who are on the streets Um... who are on the streets as sort of the stormtroopers of this.
Henrik S Wilberg: Half of them have like Filipino wives or whatever. in the exact and in the exact same situation are sort of just surprised to me that they are in the same
Conor Fowler: Right.
matty: Right, of course. Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: in the same situation so there's like the cognitive dissonance there is of course massive in the saying that because it's it's the immigration system is both what you realize is both completely sort of enmeshed with american life top to bottom
matty: I mean...
Henrik S Wilberg: from like Johns Hopkins to... your local Honduran illegal dishwasher or whatever it's like from top to bottom immigration sort of runs the entire American system.
matty: oh A hundred percent.
Henrik S Wilberg: It's not just about, you know. from the from the lowest rungs of the... of the of the economy, to but but all the way through. Um, So.
Conor Fowler: Well, it's because it's all connected. And that's like the backbone of the of conservative ideology is that shit is not connected. But anyone with a brain or any experience knows.
Conor Fowler: Every single thing on Earth is connected, and that's why the Earth is dying.
Henrik S Wilberg: Heh heh. i mean but it's, it's yeah. But you know. that's the sort of the the political the political side of things. it's um Um...
Henrik S Wilberg: uh but it is an identity question sort of as well you know this becomes What is the... sort of the fate of a One of the first things I did as when I came back here was to sort of...
Henrik S Wilberg: become like a point person for people who want to like american politics explained so sort of My first little... advent into publicity sort of in back here was to sort of explain the 2024 election.
Conor Fowler: Well, that's pretty.
Henrik S Wilberg: to...
Conor Fowler: That's pretty smart
Henrik S Wilberg: to other people. down
Conor Fowler: Right. I mean, that's like a pretty clever idea to get. re -ingratiated with your community is to like be helpful i mean to put yourself out there as a um point of information
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, but I'm... i'm Oh. and A lot of. sort of polite opinion or sort of public opinion in Europe.
Henrik S Wilberg: Pretty much it. everywhere it sort of still clings to the old ways that... ah the American lead system used to work. So people are still were for a long time and still are I guess in denial.
Henrik S Wilberg: about the state of America. in the world because they're both they're doing both ah that they've always done which basically secretly believe themselves to be quite superior to like american daily life like you know
Conor Fowler: Mhm.
matty: right
Henrik S Wilberg: America is, you know
Henrik S Wilberg: the country of school shootings, massive violence, things that sort of atavistic forms of violence that Europeans are. way beyond and don't experience. And at the same time, sort of the knowledge that sort of.
Henrik S Wilberg: them. ah American technology. controls or basically have absorbed most of European european life into itself or sort of like a subdivision of that i haven't been for a long time
matty: Right.
Conor Fowler: Well, like the man bag.
Henrik S Wilberg: and not to mention
Conor Fowler: Right? Like I feel like that was big.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, but not the media. Yeah, but not to mention like the the actual security architecture of NATO and all that stuff that has come. more to the forefront. but but this sort of embarrassing position of being obviously inferior but also of course superior in many ways that this type of double think or double consciousness that's been sort of integral to European self -understanding for a long time.
Henrik S Wilberg: People cling to it. ah the sort of the old pathologies are sort of preferred to like a new reckoning, right?
Conor Fowler: sure, well like but that's what i'm saying like the old stereotypes
Henrik S Wilberg: That makes sense.
Conor Fowler: are not even there anymore like i feel like that was so Like. In 2000... Uh, 10 maybe.
Conor Fowler: I was always rolling up my... Pants legs. Because... I'm short. And it's hot, so I'm rolling up my pants legs. I'm not hemming them.
Conor Fowler: And people would give me shit about that. And then there was a Times article about how cool it was, how ah pinrolling your pants was cool. But like. During that and before that, it was all like European F slur. You were like wearing Capri, bitch.
Conor Fowler: Like you have might as well have a purse, like that kind of shit. That doesn't exist anymore.
matty: right right right And the the worst term ever created, metrosexual.
Conor Fowler: metrosexual exactly
matty: The...
Conor Fowler: Thank you very much.
matty: God. Yeah. if i could ban one word from existence i think it would be that one
Conor Fowler: I don't like... I don't hate it that much, like... It's kind of like... If it wasn't used as a slur. It would be okay.
matty: Yeah, maybe, maybe. But I don't know, just the way it sounds.
Conor Fowler: Well, like, that a man cares about his appearance as gay or has any bearing on his sexuality is is preposterous, right?
matty: Everything about him is funny.
matty: Right, right But...
Conor Fowler: Like...
matty: Yeah. yeah
Henrik S Wilberg: It's funnily, it feels like a funny, and funnily antiquated announcement. then
Conor Fowler: Yeah, so antiquated.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um,
matty: Oh, it does! it does i mean you know like In a weird way. we lived in a simpler time. Probably not, actually, but... you know we weren't bombarded with information all the time so we turn to things like We ride for a straight guy.
matty: Uh,
Conor Fowler: It was quieter.
matty: Yeah, it was definitely quieter. ah even though we were committing. you know. Basically the same atrocities that we've always committed.
Henrik S Wilberg: see Yeah.
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, it's...
matty: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: it's ah Isabel, but... ah and What has... What I noticed a lot, I'll put it this way. Is that like the the way American culture sort of influences.
Henrik S Wilberg: say like european teenagers now it's like in a in a very sort of direct and... and uh like punctilious way if that making any sense that there's sort of ah Because as a teen in in Europe, you have access to the exact same YouTube channels. as American teens have so they're watching the same shit Um, but they they lack.
Henrik S Wilberg: the context out of which that emerged. Which... to be fair most americans probably do as well like sort of regional emergence of some form of slang or something will not. but that will then catch on, will just be it'll just happen anyway.
Henrik S Wilberg: but it just gets absorbed here. without any sort of thinking whatsoever. So it just coexists with... the way they live, which is has very little to do with what an American teen.
Henrik S Wilberg: is likes like on a daily basis but then they still have like the same kind of catchphrases to sort of sits on top of it. It's very odd. Statistically, it's and it's so sort of similar, although...
Henrik S Wilberg: It's much more... Um, much narrower here. But that's a bit... I mean, I don't know. We should get to, like, a little bit more of a... of the of the deeper thing is what My...
Henrik S Wilberg: My surprise is sort of... how american i have gotten how American. uh trends have sort of suffused europe in a very particularly in vintage, in a very particular way.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um, And. ah that the european Sensibility has... become very similar but with like a different different accents. It's very odd to go to Like I was just in France for a couple of weeks.
Henrik S Wilberg: and spent spend some time in paris for like the premier vintage stores there and it's interesting to see what's happening there and talking to the people who who who run them.
Henrik S Wilberg: and comparing that with my with with the way things are going in the in the united states and they're often like selling the very same things and so on Um...
Henrik S Wilberg: It's... Something strange is happening. ah in that world.
Conor Fowler: Well, we do have questions
matty: Yeah, yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yep.
Conor Fowler: Uh...
matty: I mean... to to that point um the The... brand store uh brutes Um...
Henrik S Wilberg: Oh, yeah.
matty: which is yeah which i i've sold to paul over the years um i followed them for a very long time you know, they opened a store in New York. um a friend of mine went when he was in town in New York last year and was like, there's not any vintage in there. It's all just brute.
matty: you know, brute branded stuff, which I have a pair of their jeans and outside of the pocket bags being hilariously shallow. um They're solid, and they're made in Japan. but you know I've always known them as a vintage store.
matty: And. their American store has zero vintage. in it even though they sell lots of American vintage.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, the Paris store is similar now.
matty: That's that's A big bummer for me.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, but this is what happened because it's it's the the the sources are i have run dry kind of over here a little bit no
matty: Yeah, yeah
Henrik S Wilberg: um Like...
matty: I mean the sources have very much in a lot of ways run dry here as well. So.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, did definite mean every conversation I have with with... Because I'm not... i've never been or sort of a except like on ebay i've never been like a vintage seller of any of any kind you know but I do talk to people and try to get a certain certain way lay of the land like what is what is happening And...
Henrik S Wilberg: Um, Everybody is saying the same things. that Basically, the tenor of the conversation is it's... it's kind of over it's kind of cooked it's not uh in the sense that the way things the model that they used to
matty: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: Follow is... as to change somehow. and how you adapt to to to that i mean you you can only move so far into More recent things?
Henrik S Wilberg: Uh, Something like... place like Broadway and Sons in Sweden. i wrote a little bit of an article about this on the subsection what's like the difference different european vintage stores and where they're going.
Henrik S Wilberg: And that's... like their actual... Classic. vintage pieces are. few and far between or not even for sale and they're selling massive amounts of like 80s and 90s stuff
matty: yeah Which, I mean... Like, I hate the term true vintage. Like, it is it is the bane of my existence as someone that has been into this shit for so long.
Henrik S Wilberg: Okay.
matty: Because... it You know, it's kind of like antique. Bye. or vintage in general. There's there's a definition. And you don't need anything more than that. like 20 years is vintage that's been the standard forever true vintage is now 70. because it used to mean in like over 50 years old. And they're just like, come on, motherfucker. is.
matty: Like...
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, yeah.
matty: You know, something from the mid 80s is now 40 years old. Like it's almost as old as I am.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
matty: So. I don't know. like i don't I don't mind that 80s and 90s stuff. or even like early you know y2k as long as it's 20 years old and i think it's cool but
Henrik S Wilberg: yeah i don't know i thought about this this sort of cyclical thinking around clothing it's it's always kind of uh struck me as quite wrong. in some ways
matty: Yeah, totally. so
Henrik S Wilberg: it's because um we're talking about a sort of a model of like The Monopoly is a classic. or the word classic or the notion of what is Classic.
Henrik S Wilberg: vintage. But also the, but that. there's a good example that i sometimes think about which is which about classical literature or like Something like... stuff written in like Latin and Greek, right?
Conor Fowler: Sure.
Henrik S Wilberg: that um You have to bear with me. The analogy is simply this. It's like... there's There's the classic actual Roman.
Conor Fowler: if
Henrik S Wilberg: stuff in Latin. There's not a lot of it that's preserved. It's limited. And you can read it in a lifetime. It's not that hard. I mean it can be done. It's ah it's not nothing but it's limited Greek literature classic.
Conor Fowler: I like that.
Henrik S Wilberg: We need to address that.
Conor Fowler: I like that as an expression, by the way.
Henrik S Wilberg: Let's go.
Conor Fowler: You can read that in a lifetime. but
Henrik S Wilberg: No, no, but if you look at like everything that's been written in the language of Latin Right.
Conor Fowler: Yeah, no.
Henrik S Wilberg: ah The classic is like this.
Conor Fowler: Mm hmm.
Henrik S Wilberg: And you have like medieval, which is 50. like a thousand times larger.
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: That's still like old latin stuff And then you have... The most... The most... latin that exists was written in the 1700s and 1600s like it's recent it's new it's modern
Conor Fowler: Right.
matty: right
Henrik S Wilberg: and no one cares about it. No one gives a shit. about that.
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: That's new Latin, but that's almost every lat everything about in latin that's been written that has no influence of how we understand antiquity but the language it's just in sheer volume and vintage is a bit like that as well like this the amount of clothing that was made in 40s and 50s.
Henrik S Wilberg: And then you move on and then you have clothes. then it explodes, like the kind of clothing that's made. in then Thousands. It's billions of pieces and no one gives a shit and will ever give a shit about about that so there is ah So the classic analogy means that basically classic is a limited concept.
Henrik S Wilberg: And it can't work unless it's limited. Once you get up against that limit... it can be preserved but it's no longer really an active thing and it wouldn't be what it is if you allowed it if we just sort of started If we started treating like 1700 Latin literature as the real thing.
Henrik S Wilberg: there would no longer be such a thing as the classics because it wouldn't work anymore That's how I kind of think about.
Conor Fowler: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: vintage that once you extend it beyond a certain a certain range it doesn't work anymore. Even if 20 years is a good sort of ready -to -hand thing
matty: Yeah. Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: It comes up against the limit of...
matty: i
Henrik S Wilberg: like 1995 or something. what What you then need is a much stronger... sort of effective reason you can you get like we get this through ourselves like 90s. 90s.
Henrik S Wilberg: Ralph Lauren and stuff is still like the peak of things but they won't really There's not really anything after that. that has the same ca that will have the same cachet.
matty: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: There's some things early Y2K maybe that can...
matty: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: that can
matty: Well, I think, you know
Henrik S Wilberg: That can do it. Not much.
matty: I think maybe double RL. um lvc than the more premium stuff
Henrik S Wilberg: like the old LVC.
matty: Yeah, yeah, like like Valencia Street stuff.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
matty: is you know has been sought after because it was the original factory.
Henrik S Wilberg: Okay. Yeah.
matty: Um... you know I think at a certain point.
Henrik S Wilberg: But I still kind of like it trailing sort of thing of what went before. Okay. Yeah, just a theory. and like like Maybe in fashion you would see something like 90s stuff will be more...
Henrik S Wilberg: like it will extend into like 2000 eight ten or something maybe
matty: Right. right i mean honestly i
Henrik S Wilberg: But they will. know
matty: I kind of think that... um the overall fashion world is starting to lap itself. And I don't remember, I know o' Connor and I have talked about this. Personally, but I don't know if we've talked about it on the show but you know like Like the 2010s and early...
matty: ah you know. Like or I guess late aughts early 2010s like the skinny jeans and shit like that They're still. They're still available.
matty: but people are starting to like. wear them again, like people that didn't experience it the first time. And it's wild to me.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, I mean, that's... Um... Not entirely. Sort of a... Um... not entirely unexpected. and they I guess some of those brands will have them.
matty: Right, right. Also the Ed Hardy shit making a comeback is killing me. uh
Conor Fowler: I almost bought Ed Hardy car air freshener because it was...
matty: I will.
Conor Fowler: it was only it was only two dollars and the rest of the shit was like twenty dollars but then Then it occurred to me, whatever the Ed Hardy scent is, I don't want anywhere near me.
matty: Dude, just...
matty: Oh, yeah. No, I - Hell no, you don't want that shit. just just go to a gas station to buy the tree one for two bucks for a three pack you know
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: I, I, I actually think that we're only at the beginning of basically... the 90s and 2000s. There's actually a lot more that's going to come down the pipeline because there's more else to go.
matty: Oh, 100%.
Henrik S Wilberg: it'll basically be like we're gonna go further further down the circles of hell in this
matty: Right. right well i
Henrik S Wilberg: in this type of revival we'll get more like it will from furniture to scent and everything
matty: Oh God.
Henrik S Wilberg: everything from that era.
matty: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: I mean it is true, i mean nostalgia is extremely powerful. And when everything else runs on on fumes, there's nowhere else to go.
matty: It is.
Henrik S Wilberg: and it's it is true like try to
matty: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: Like I make that made that argument a couple of times like if you just if you watch even like a good film right now. You can basically make the experiment a whole. Like, look at...
Henrik S Wilberg: Like what is considered like a well -made... Piece of cinema now. Uh,
Conor Fowler: what does that What does that even mean?
Henrik S Wilberg: i I don't know, but so something that's like, well...
Conor Fowler: a well -made a well -made piece of cinema now like
Henrik S Wilberg: Till next week. like a well -crafted A24 feature. like
Conor Fowler: Okay, sure.
matty: but The...
Henrik S Wilberg: Like...
Conor Fowler: So, like, one one movie a year.
Henrik S Wilberg: something like that something that's said something that's like
matty: I've heard nothing but good things about The Odyssey, but I will probably never watch it.
Henrik S Wilberg: We can ask all say adios.
Conor Fowler: I'm not watching that shit.
matty: stuff
Conor Fowler: Are you fucking kidding me? Three hours long? Travis Scott, get the fuck out of here.
Henrik S Wilberg: that's I don't know. Maybe I'll watch it next week.
matty: I haven't seen a new movie since Top Gun Maverick in, what was that, 2024?
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, yeah No, but I think, like, visually.
matty: you know
Henrik S Wilberg: But but it just put it on, and then... switch to like See... to an episode of like season two or three of X -Files.
matty: right
Henrik S Wilberg: Just like a frame just watch an episode of that And that's going to feel like watching a Kubrick movie.
matty: Cholo!
Henrik S Wilberg: it'll it'll be like so visually clean stark and beautiful that like that basically Like... What was made on film for TV looks...
Henrik S Wilberg: better than anything now in terms of like
Conor Fowler: Like the Sopranos.
Henrik S Wilberg: the fresh result
Conor Fowler: i some recently watched the sopranos like every episode of that
matty: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: i'll be like whatever is a masterpiece but the the shots are like They don't do that at all anymore It's like nobody really knows how to use a camera.
matty: And I...
Conor Fowler: Um.
matty: I'm probably in the minority, but I hate high definition TVs. like
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, it's it's it's bad, but I mean, I did...
matty: Anything?
Henrik S Wilberg: I've spoken to some people who work in television also. Some of them are... are um
Henrik S Wilberg: well aware of what's happened. but and But those people are no longer around.
Conor Fowler: how much it How much does it have to do with the writer's strike?
Henrik S Wilberg: Hello.
Henrik S Wilberg: Well, I don't know.
Conor Fowler: from like
Henrik S Wilberg: That's like its like a like a theory that sort of cheapened... things but there is also there just like a loss of loss of know -how They're the people who could bake.
Henrik S Wilberg: and edit those things. All those guys are retired now.
matty: mm -hmm
Henrik S Wilberg: If you want to make something like a... What I watch that was like that um Um... Like I always try to like plug gaps that's what you do when you get older and sort of try to plug gaps and And...
Henrik S Wilberg: like a test of how american you've become it's like is there a few is there some things that i haven't like gotten a grip of Is there a few things that I haven't sort of penetrated as again that I couldnt and don't understand?
Henrik S Wilberg: um And there are still there are still a few things. ah Weirdly, one of those things was like... what is the appeal of like barbara streisand i never really knew
matty: Hehehehe!
Henrik S Wilberg: like my parents sort of i was like halfway a fan but it's like as a As a phenomenon?
Conor Fowler: There's some shit that I'm very confused by
Henrik S Wilberg: So this as a phenomenon, like how was this how did this work, right? but then i watched like a movie like yentl or something it was like kind of a it's not a great movie but it's pretty but it's like a standard.
Henrik S Wilberg: high -end production. um mid 80s production. And there's nothing better than this. I mean, People probably hated it at the time, this kind of bloated. historical Costumed pieces.
Henrik S Wilberg: but they look like nothing else. It was like, this is like, and something oh yeah, this is... The Ralph Lauren appeal as well people This is what people like. look like um out of Africa with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford for instance like if you watch that movie that's like okay this is exactly
matty: right
Henrik S Wilberg: the same appeal. So as long as this kind of looks good. It'll be it'll be fine now uh but And when you we all have that, I mean, but... um
Henrik S Wilberg: The same thing with music. I'm at it sort of personally. I'm at that. moment where I just... Uh... I prefer to spend a lot of time with...
Henrik S Wilberg: with those things instead and filling in the gaps of the past are much more interesting than staying up to date and I think a lot of even younger folks feel the same way. even though they don't know what they're missing.
Henrik S Wilberg: haven't really experienced what like being at the cutting edge of something is like at least we had. ago in around 1999 or something.
matty: yeah Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: where the future was still sort of felt like the future and not something else but
matty: Definitely.
Henrik S Wilberg: So I've been sort of obsessively kind of...
matty: And...
Henrik S Wilberg: cataloging.
Conor Fowler: Well, if you watch The Matrix, like The Matrix is a perfect example of that.
Henrik S Wilberg: this sort of feelings of the past.
Conor Fowler: time, I think. And that like. ah Crossroads basically the like analog digital crossroads, which of course like that movie is about even So, yeah, I mean.
Conor Fowler: It's hard to...
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, it's is it yeah and so miss Matrix. i i've tried this something with with younger students trying to impart like the not just the look, but also the feel of Y2K.
Henrik S Wilberg: Matrix is good, but it's like... it's just i don't know Um... My go -to for this is Alex Garland's The Beach. If you don't remember this movie with Leonardo, young Leonardo, young -ish Leonardo DiCaprio.
Conor Fowler: Mmm.
matty: Yeah, I remember it to a point.
Henrik S Wilberg: And.
matty: I don't know if I've ever seen it
Henrik S Wilberg: It's like a great, exciting... Watch this is this. This is like a sort of a distillation of like... It's like a Y2K fever dream. It's very very... is a tech.
matty: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: It's not a good, it's not a good film. But visually, thematically something, it's...
Conor Fowler: but
Henrik S Wilberg: it's it's pretty good
matty: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: and it's of course better than anything sort of contemporary like any film from 1993. Any film from 1999 or 2000 will unfortunately be... a lot better.
Henrik S Wilberg: than most things made today and that is Sad. ah But it is... Oh.
Henrik S Wilberg: It is like a window. sort of This is how I think of sort of... cultural histories i have a different view than most people i think about this a lot of people When I hear podcasts or when I hear Derek Guy or something talking about...
Henrik S Wilberg: trends and how and how things move. It's hopely kind of hopelessly biased towards... post -war culture like the kind of the way culture moved once it became like mass.
Henrik S Wilberg: Media -fied. And that might be a mistake. uh because that means the expectation that culture is always moving Or that there is always... It's probably true that there always are, you know.
Henrik S Wilberg: creative people who are going to do stuff. But that does not mean that that will have an uptake into... something like a generalized understanding of what's going on like a self -understanding of where we are It can absolutely go away.
matty: hu
Henrik S Wilberg: And it has on multiple occasions.
matty: Yeah, totally.
Henrik S Wilberg: and in like fairly recent history even. that that
matty: I mean... i with the rise of you know Mike. social media and influencers and content creators. I hate those fucking terms.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
matty: Um... you know, for for literally any. type of Same. Bye. menswear, you know fucking wellness influencers, whatever. is Bye.
matty: the There is no monoculture. anymore and there hasn't been for a while now but Even in that. like in that respect, like.
matty: To the 90s monoculture or or whatever you want to call it Bye. Things are way more. just way more fractured. And. Like. I don't know. There's...
matty: I'm not saying it's a bad change, although the influencer content creator thing sucks, but like... you know, we can get. more information than ever before. We can find more people that are into the things that we're into. than ever before.
matty: But at what cost, I guess, is my question.
Henrik S Wilberg: I think going if if you free yourself from... from the notion that culture needs to be new or moves forward. Um... I've often been called or referred to as like a cultural pessimist.
Henrik S Wilberg: I'm more like an apocalyptic.
Conor Fowler: but
Henrik S Wilberg: I think its it's all it.
matty: okay
Conor Fowler: Wow. Wow, how perfect.
Henrik S Wilberg: It is. I think it's it's over and has been for a while. No.
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
matty: Oh, yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: It just takes you away.
matty: Totally.
Conor Fowler: The jig is up. the jig is up you're talking to the right you're talking to the right uh program for sure
Henrik S Wilberg: It just just takes time. It. It takes a while for things to die or for us to realize that things that things that are dead are already dead.
Conor Fowler: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: Well.
Conor Fowler: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um, And that is that was the case, sort of. in earlier sort of dead periods of history as well. it's its It can happen. But if you free yourself from that notion, that what you instead what you have are sort of...
Henrik S Wilberg: supernovas of of cultural activity that then goes away. And you have this sort of dead. Stars. sort of circulating in the universe and you can just
Conor Fowler: wow wow wow wow
Henrik S Wilberg: look at them from now and then. And there isn't necessarily a a connection between between those and literature and philosophy works a little bit these ways We can think about certain things.
Henrik S Wilberg: That way as well like the there are just um periods that produced and periods that were sort of the the word for these are like epigonal. Times is the fancy word for it, basically.
Henrik S Wilberg: um times where you simply maintain or repeat what you did before. And that's what culture is. learn the ways of the past and you maintain them.
Conor Fowler: That's the show.
matty: right right
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, sure i mean that's how there's all what I do.
Conor Fowler: ah
Henrik S Wilberg: I mean, when I don't look for new stuff. I try to... i try to sometimes Hmm. I've gone through... Um... periods of this before like i remember as a student i used to I used to live very close to like the National Library.
Henrik S Wilberg: that had like perfect archives of you know daily newspapers and everything.
Conor Fowler: Sure.
Henrik S Wilberg: And whenever I started like a period, like eighteen late or something, I would... I would just go to the... to the to the to the National Library have them basically give me newspapers from the day of 1893 or something. I would just go through.
Henrik S Wilberg: Just like a few a few weeks of newspaper stuff just to sort of immerse myself in like the past in that way This is a sort of look look at what it is and see how that felt.
Conor Fowler: Brilliant.
Henrik S Wilberg: What is it if you... If you like follow the news of 1893.
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: what that would what that would look like this type of that type of immersion sort of This is what I've kind of... feel like it would and It's this type of creating creating for myself. like a like a sort of a panorama that wouldn't have been possible at the time but now you can sort of reconstruct it for yourself And that's all I ask for. I do this for...
Henrik S Wilberg: For music... Probably like the bigger story in my past year and year and a half is More music than... than clothes maybe but it's it's thingss become narrower i mean it's like
matty: okay
Henrik S Wilberg: And.
Conor Fowler: Because you've been buying vinyl, right?
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, I've been buying ah buying a lot of vinyl. ah
matty: Well... Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: And I've had some opinions about... Because people have weirder opinions about that than clothes. Because clothes are still...
Conor Fowler: Oh, my God, dude.
matty: um um Absolutely.
Henrik S Wilberg: no
Conor Fowler: People.
matty: Absolutely.
Conor Fowler: my dad My dad has like more than 100 ,000 records, and he's a fucking lunatic. so
matty: ah
Henrik S Wilberg: music.
matty: Hit her with that.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, there's still a way to go. Yeah.
matty: I have to ask. What kind of music? Like where's the rabbit hole taken?
Henrik S Wilberg: No, this is what I meant. like so There are, of course, many sort of... many different Uh, Some place things are exhaustible, some things are inexhaustible.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um, and some things have like a material quality that's worth chasing and some things do not That's how I think about vintage also the things that are cool There's some things that are cool, but that I... that doesn't have like the material anchor you know like Uh...
Henrik S Wilberg: It's not worth getting the real thing. um,
Conor Fowler: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: with vinyl is similar like something's Something sounded like shit when it came out. So buying it on vinyl will not help you. um So it's just a collectible then. It doesn't...
Henrik S Wilberg: doesn't um Doesn't work. And some things are interesting, but... Uh... Like I said. You can get a command of it, like... of an example of that.
Henrik S Wilberg: Maybe like... Um, It says something like early 90s. Uh... alternative rock and stuff for instance is like There's a lot of it, but it's kind of...
Henrik S Wilberg: It's not like... ah you can spend your life doing that. You can get a pretty reasonable command of it. But then there's stuff like...
Conor Fowler: Sure.
Henrik S Wilberg: Classic reggae, which is...
matty: oh
Henrik S Wilberg: Insane.
matty: Yes.
Henrik S Wilberg: Uh, is... insane production that you will never get to the end of and you need like dedicate your life to this if you want to
Conor Fowler: Well, and like the blues, the blues and jazz, like that's why I haven't even really gotten into either genre.
Henrik S Wilberg: If you want to get it.
matty: And also...
Henrik S Wilberg: would say like Yeah. Yeah, jazz jazz is... But jazz jazz is one thing where I'm sort of, okay, you you're I'm not going to get there.
Henrik S Wilberg: because it's it's kind of too late, but I do like to sort of...
Conor Fowler: Yeah. i don't give a fuck but
Henrik S Wilberg: No, I do. I do. I can probe. This is similar to vintage in the sense that... There are some things that can... Uh, where you can were you allowed to probe the depths even though it's not the greatest you can get like Okay, I'm not going to get the the most expensive sought -after record.
Conor Fowler: Kiss discography.
Henrik S Wilberg: the most dis... good but you can get like um Uh, stuff that people don't care that much about like sort of classic sort of west coast cool jerry mulligan jazz or something like that people don't pay an insane amount of money for those.
Henrik S Wilberg: Uh, But you can get the original like Pacific jazz pressings of those and they sound amazing. ah John Coltrane is better, of course, but you know, what are you gonna do?
Henrik S Wilberg: But those are...
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: Those are like...
matty: right
Henrik S Wilberg: uh real Um... real sort of points of access to those things. My other one is like... early 70s. sort of folk rock.
Henrik S Wilberg: It's like a... That's the stuff that sounds best on vinyl that's available for a reasonable price
matty: Yeah, totally. Subtitles by the Amara .org community
Henrik S Wilberg: um and is better than anything and it's also in my opinion, demonstrably better than any other format you could listen to it. that's not true for most things. And it tapers off after.
Henrik S Wilberg: 1980. pretty drastically. In my opinion. and remaster it better. sort of But people are insane about music in the way that they're not about vintage, which is...
Henrik S Wilberg: Um, I don't know if it's good, I don't know, it's... it's I guess menswear is still small enough, I guess?
matty: right Record collecting is a whole other beast.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um... Yeah, people have been doing it for so long and even this like
matty: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: But that's that's the kind of thing I like. there's like a when the abyss of knowledge sort of opens up, if you like. if you spend a second if you spend like a minute on like a grateful dead reddit or something he's like
matty: Oh, God.
Henrik S Wilberg: oh yeah it's like this is
matty: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: I was going to say.
matty: yeah
Henrik S Wilberg: This is...
matty: as As much as I love the dead, I cannot do it.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah. Yeah, that's a whole different beast.
Conor Fowler: I would.
Henrik S Wilberg: I mean, that's like a lifetime thing.
Conor Fowler: I wouldn't be found.
matty: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: That's like i admiring that type of stuff.
matty: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: That's kind of what I like. I like that better. than say this kind of Um... The social media -driven sort of explain, explanatory.
matty: right
Henrik S Wilberg: recycling of all the same i mean that goes from the from the stupid Uh... Stupid zoomer. ah vertical videos to even to like more respectable stuff like the like the articles of interest podcasts and that stuff i don't know I'm a good, I'm a professional hater in some ways.
Henrik S Wilberg: and
matty: and So are we.
Conor Fowler: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: Mr.
matty: Yeah, you're in the right place.
Conor Fowler: yeah
Henrik S Wilberg: This type. Yeah, this type of like of of like imparting of knowledge kind of annoys me as a...
matty: So...
Henrik S Wilberg: as as a teacher and as a and as someone because that's not what i'm after i'm after basically like a proper lived interpretation of something.
Conor Fowler: Great.
matty: So Connor and I.
Henrik S Wilberg: I don't really... Yeah.
matty: We were talking about this yesterday. um in preparation for the interview with you. The long form slash essay. realm, versus...
matty: Don't like. Short. video explainer realm. And. You know, I will go on record as saying that like I get served a lot of like menswear.
matty: and clothing quote -unquote influencer videos
Conor Fowler: Here's my version of the Ralph talk.
matty: Yeah, yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, fucking shit, man.
matty: um I... Like... The only people that I can think of off the top of my head that I have liked and they've been both been guests on the show but like eugene park and david lane you know They have an angle that makes sense. They're offering...
matty: They're offering something to the people that enjoy what they're doing ah you know. like learning how to how to wear clothes as a bigger deal. you know, it
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
matty: like most of what I get served. And maybe this is. just my fucked up algorithm on Instagram, but like... It's a lot of shit that's just been rehashed over the 20, you know.
matty: 20 plus years that menswear has like been ascended. like the history of selva's genes like bro you bought those six months ago Like you didn't know anything about this a year.
Henrik S Wilberg: And half the time it's not even correct. it's not even correct
matty: Right, right, right. Um... So in in this world that we're kind of... living in at this point. Mike. Where do we go from here?
matty: like is, you know. is this. the new normal of like a niche interest?
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, I'm a little bit worried about this sort of that this sort of knowledge becoming... Or like this sort of... yeah this sort of uh this type of communication and this sort of lecturing on short form becoming a Uh...
Henrik S Wilberg: a sort of a dominant form of influencer speak that's it's very odd It's so much poorer than, say, like an expression of personal style.
matty: mm -hmm
Henrik S Wilberg: It's much less than someone wearing a shirt an interesting way, but it's very hard to find that type of stuff online I must admit I've sort of thought about... doing videos and stuff myself, but I've it's never been
matty: I mean I don't think
Henrik S Wilberg: Been something I'd want to do
Conor Fowler: It's corny.
matty: I, well, I...
Conor Fowler: It's corny. It's fucking embarrassing.
Henrik S Wilberg: it is It is embarrassing, but I think there might be like a way to do it, but I think it's...
matty: so
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, it's not, it doesn't help in this way, but I know everything's security.
matty: I don't...
Conor Fowler: Here's the way to do it You have a fucking team of producers. You have videographers. They shoot you. You talk. And they produce it. You know what I mean? It's like the...
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: You can't DIY it without looking corny, I think.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, you're right
matty: I don't know. i My... my Bye. My opinion about the video like I'm never gonna make them um I don't really care if people make videos like it's fine Whatever.
matty: ah my My hatred is the more... of like... people with no actual knowledge. becoming popular.
Henrik S Wilberg: It's stolen.
matty: because they're they're talking about things that they they don't actually know about.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
matty: And like, it drives me up a wall.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, you can't i mean but you know they can't have What we have eventually, but I don't know I don't know what the rewards even are It's never been...
matty: Yeah, maybe maybe
Henrik S Wilberg: um Like the whole... The whole social media part has been... I don't know how I feel about it right now it's just... It was always a surprise that anyone that anyone cared Uh...
Henrik S Wilberg: And it seems like... it's only for like a selected audience now which is also fine I guess we should be grateful for for the for that.
matty: Right. Yeah, I mean...
Henrik S Wilberg: period we have, and but it's it is hard to discover. Discover some things, but I don't know It's a... And. Where we go from it? I don't know it's it'll be I don't know. i'm I guess I'm trying to to move things to sub stack a little bit not because i particularly like that either.
Henrik S Wilberg: but because it's useful to just some other projects that I'm pursuing. So just writing about a couple of things. Um, I am. Good. like fiddling with a different genre of writing about style, which is more like...
Henrik S Wilberg: It has has more more to do with like memoir -style writing, which is also another curse of millennials, I know. but it's it's it's It's what we're stuck with. We're not going to write real novels. We're going to do this.
Henrik S Wilberg: We're stuck with this forever. We're going to write historical novels.
matty: We all have blogs.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, yeah, block. I mean, this is actually half joking, but this is... our idiom, if you think about That's ah another sort of the the millennial. I actually like generational talk like this because I think it does.
Henrik S Wilberg: Makes sense. But we did. even though even though the internet and the sort of tech industries at Gen X. invention. ah to to the largest extent.
Henrik S Wilberg: um The language of social media is a millennial invention.
matty: hundred percent
Henrik S Wilberg: like I like the, from the, you know, the Buzzfeed titles of the 2000, all that, that type of the interesting that is now. like with Brooklyn Vegan going under, that's now... probably dead like the that entire media ecosystem that basically created the language and the mores of the mores of online really and for good and bad
Conor Fowler: the listicle
Henrik S Wilberg: It's now kind of. that cycle is complete when now like They put the last. Dog down. It's kind of interesting. But that's that's our. But that's our product. We did it like in terms of. the the generational output.
Henrik S Wilberg: is... the language. of the internet that's now kind of antiquated but It's only like barely archived, but that's... Um,
Henrik S Wilberg: Remains are strength. I think anything that's there's Still some... some possibilities there.
matty: I think so as well.
Henrik S Wilberg: that that I do. So it's that's why I'm kind of doing this sort of... writing about sort of personal inroads into certain style things.
Henrik S Wilberg: So I have... I'm never going to ride a listicle or a tip or anything like this. It's going only going to be this. Um, Type of writings that don't really fit in anywhere. So Or maybe they do.
Henrik S Wilberg: Sometimes you you create your own... your own niche, right? But we'll see. But in terms of video, I haven't given quite up on it yet.
matty: totally it
Henrik S Wilberg: I have a guy. maybe this Maybe something can be done. but um I don't know It's... um It's... um Uh...
Henrik S Wilberg: we'll see, to be to be continued in in terms of that that part.
matty: I think also one of my thoughts about... you know essay And, and like. traditional kind of blog content. Like, Oh, I'm going to write about this thing. Um,
matty: I feel like that is... is kind of making a comeback. because people want something with substance and not just like of 45 second to minute and a half video.
matty: And I kind of like. I just thought about this, but... I kind of liken that to You know Gen Z ah going back to wanting analog stuff.
matty: Like they want tapes, they want CDs, they want records and like early digital cameras. you know, like there is a certain nostalgia about. things of that nature. that has not really come up.
matty: yet. but maybe we're seeing kind of a shift toward that.
Henrik S Wilberg: I don't know. i'm it's sort of I'm always skeptical about these type of desires desires a little bit because in terms of...
matty: Chalo!
Henrik S Wilberg: Especially nostalgia for things that... that you didn't know?
matty: Right, right. But I mean, I also like...
Henrik S Wilberg: As much...
matty: I had that about the 70s when I was in high school. you know And that was my parents' decade. So. It's not that dissimilar in my opinion.
Henrik S Wilberg: No, but there's like the... the The thread is sort of... Uh... is lost in a certain thing. um I...
Henrik S Wilberg: I've tried to theorize this a couple of - there used to be these guys I remember in like y2k era like 2000s that were like True vintage. I don't know if you remember guys people like this like true vintage head like back then who were more like...
Henrik S Wilberg: Period. It was period correctness, but it was a kind of absorption that I haven't really seen since.
matty: Okay, yeah
Henrik S Wilberg: I um i remember i remember there was this guy called in Vienna called Ollie. And he had like a... perfectly reproduced like 70s apartment and a shop. And he would like not listen to anything.
Henrik S Wilberg: Uh, and try not to like be aware. of anything that happened around him that was like after the 70s like he was content with this um
matty: He was committed to the bit.
Henrik S Wilberg: He was committed to the bit, but also in this in the sense that he... So the question is, what kind of nostalgia? What but what was he doing exactly? It was a kind of... It was a kind of a... ah sort of a personal project. there's the Also that ah fabulous book.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um, that I read. um called i've seen the future and i'm not going a Great title, right?
Henrik S Wilberg: But it's like...
matty: Great title.
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: yeah it's it's by peter mcguff who's like well he was part of like this 80s downtown scene. Uh, Alongside you know Basquiat and Keith Haring in that same era, right?
Henrik S Wilberg: But these guys... uh, were like radical. Edwardians, like they would like dress they had like ah at the at the At the height of it, they had like a... They had a...
Henrik S Wilberg: horse and carriage drawn they they ripped the electricity out of their townhouse and and on the lower east side. So they basically... Um... Left the modern world and that was kind of there sort of postmodern art piece. so Um,
Henrik S Wilberg: Incredible stuff. um
Conor Fowler: Truly.
Henrik S Wilberg: So these are the kind of sort of...
Conor Fowler: People, there aren they don't make them like that anymore.
Henrik S Wilberg: No. So this these are kind of related to paths that I'm like more interested in. Similarly with like Deadheads or something that are 100 % in it, who have all the tapes of all the shows.
matty: right right
Conor Fowler: Dude, I lived with this guy.
Henrik S Wilberg: and are never going to listen.
Conor Fowler: I know I've talked about him before Rodney Wayne Charleston III. AKA Rod Gnarly.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, amazing.
Conor Fowler: And. He... He had one dreadlock. It was a beaver tail. And. Every surface of my old house was covered in dead tour posters.
Henrik S Wilberg: anything should
Henrik S Wilberg: yeah it's amazing this is the kind of thing
Conor Fowler: And it was a big house.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah. This is the kind of thing that I'm talking about. so This is like the the commitment. This is what I don't see among the Gen Z crowd.
Conor Fowler: Well, he gets fucking speeding tickets and parking tickets and shit, and he never ever pays them.
Henrik S Wilberg: This. this type of community.
Henrik S Wilberg: Fantastic. this is this is the This is the good stuff. no these type And I've never had the commitment to... that exactly.
matty: yeah so
Henrik S Wilberg: Um,
matty: that
Henrik S Wilberg: Except I do love like proper antiquarian. stuff like I am I spent a lot of my time with, you know... medieval or pre -modern. stuff. language This is sort of...
Henrik S Wilberg: A true love, maybe, more sort of than than than than other things. you so but that this
matty: Yeah, you're you're not riding around on a horse. ah you know
Henrik S Wilberg: No, no, but no but this this sort of...
matty: Wearing chainmail.
Henrik S Wilberg: ah yeah true commitment uh uh is something i I wonder if... we'll if we'll see to that extent. Um...
matty: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: when the But that was kind of a voluntary kind of like monk -like enclosure when you did that in the 90s or 2000s. now it's kind of when the future is kind of foreclosed it's kind of like a maybe a predictable sort of depressive reaction, but I don't know. I don't see it.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um... Um, Um... we'll We'll see. ah but for yeah for every or for every zoomer that likes vinyl.
Henrik S Wilberg: there's Um... A lot of people who just have never even... seen physical media. and like I think my nephews like saw it for the first time. They saw a cassette for the first time when they visited last year.
Henrik S Wilberg: 19 years old. didn't really know what it was, didn't know how to... put it in or play it or anything. Um...
Conor Fowler: Like the fax machine that is still used in many serious places of business.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
matty: Jesus Christ. Yeah, yeah
Conor Fowler: almost exclusively like that. In my 36 years. And I'm like tech savvy. I have no fucking idea how it works.
Henrik S Wilberg: Okay.
Conor Fowler: I don't know why it's different from... ah
Henrik S Wilberg: Seriously.
Conor Fowler: ah I don't know. Why does it work? What the fuck is it?
matty: I've worked with a lot of very old companies that love a fucking fax machine.
Conor Fowler: They all do.
matty: Uh,
Conor Fowler: They all are running their companies on a fucking fax machine.
matty: Yeah. Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: Okay.
matty: Up here.
Henrik S Wilberg: It's true there are like
matty: yeah yeah
Henrik S Wilberg: This is true also when you're like... a uh There are people who sort of live. who live. Um... And... who have successfully sort of evaded the modern world in a way and businesses that have as well and they can for the time being and it's kind of nice to To know like there are people who don't know Um...
Henrik S Wilberg: Like when the philosopher Jürgen Habermas, kind of the most famous living philosopher, died in... March? April? He had never written an email. He successfully evaded that.
Henrik S Wilberg: Like if you...
Conor Fowler: yeah that's a That's a flex. I mean...
Henrik S Wilberg: He has like a friend of mine No.
matty: that is That is definitely a flex.
Henrik S Wilberg: He had like a physical at home. He had like a physical like note card archive like for quotations and stuff like the way people used to do like scholars you to have this little card libraries like old libraries used to have like the old library catalog
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like a Rolodex.
Henrik S Wilberg: Like a Rolodex.
Conor Fowler: My grandfather always gets, always says, My word processors right up here that kind of shit. You know what I mean?
Henrik S Wilberg: Yep.
Conor Fowler: He's definitely never sent an email either, but he has an iPad
Henrik S Wilberg: There's an iPad.
Conor Fowler: What the fuck?
Henrik S Wilberg: No, that's not great. Yeah, but it's ah Um... But there are, you know. uh like whole businesses that that are run you sometimes see them if you travel a little.
Henrik S Wilberg: far out or don't go go to like an I mean they i mean don't have to go that far in Baltimore to find like a diner where they still have the Victor Scheer at the end.
Conor Fowler: You'd be surprised unfortunately
Henrik S Wilberg: the cashier at the exit.
Conor Fowler: Many of them have closed.
Henrik S Wilberg: what is like an old lady and you have to pay the old lady we're leaving and you have the handwritten things and
Conor Fowler: Oh, yeah, no. all I thought that that.
Henrik S Wilberg: they don't have anything
Conor Fowler: I thought that was a convention of a diner was to pay out. front at the end.
Henrik S Wilberg: You don't have those I mean in
Conor Fowler: No, I'm saying we do. um but a lot of the dinos have closed of course i mean
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, I accept your line, but...
Conor Fowler: All right, Pete.
Henrik S Wilberg: But you know that there's still they're still around but uh
Conor Fowler: There's this place Toucan Taco that has a payphone inside of it.
Henrik S Wilberg: That's pretty good.
matty: Sick.
Conor Fowler: It's wearing a sombrero
Henrik S Wilberg: those
Conor Fowler: It is in Laurel, Maryland. It is like a white person. Mexican place. from the 1960s. It has paper menus.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: There's like 12...
Henrik S Wilberg: i
Conor Fowler: 12 menu items. So you know it's fucking good.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
matty: It sounds perfect.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: Yeah. We'll have to go there.
Henrik S Wilberg: Well, sometimes, yeah.
Conor Fowler: We'll have to go there, Matt, truly. I mean, it is very good.
matty: they They have nothing vegan, I can assure you.
Conor Fowler: No, they actually do because everything you can get with beans!
matty: Yeah, but What are the beans cooked in is the problem.
Henrik S Wilberg: Everything is a bing.
Conor Fowler: They say that they are vegetarian, but I don't know if they're vegan.
Henrik S Wilberg: You know.
matty: Okay, well, if they if they're vegetarian, yeah. they should be beaten. So.
Conor Fowler: Yeah, you can get a torta you can get whatever the fuck I mean Anyway.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, well... Um, No, but like the the... I'm interested in this, like the exhaustion of vintage. Cause I'm. I'm thinking about like the fate of the fate of everything in terms of the...
Henrik S Wilberg: I just like the k -shaped economy or whatever
Conor Fowler: mm -hmm
Henrik S Wilberg: And what happens to vintage? that I mentioned in the New York timepiece as well. like ah vintage is large A part of the vintage world is now objectively like a luxury good
matty: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: behave It behaves like a luxury good.
Conor Fowler: Oh yeah.
matty: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: Mm hmm.
Henrik S Wilberg: It has the clients of luxury goods.
matty: And that's only...
Henrik S Wilberg: And it has like...
matty: The past. Six years. you know, maybe even the past four years.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
matty: like
Henrik S Wilberg: There were always some things that were expensive, but they're like the truly like stratospheric prices for even... anything that's even remotely Uh... In like the...
Henrik S Wilberg: like for anything like all yeah from everything from like
Henrik S Wilberg: old like the old jc penny stuff when that started climbing to like 200 i was like
matty: Right, right.
Henrik S Wilberg: And now now we're in like the true element and it's really once that happens there's no There's no stopping it.
matty: Yeah. Well...
Henrik S Wilberg: Um...
matty: You know, i think I think a lot of that is... the Like we had talked about earlier. the model has changed and my personal way of doing things has not changed.
matty: I'm not going to pay a hundred dollars for something that can make 25, 50 bucks on. But a lot of these fucking like rich kid dorks. We'll do that. Or they'll pay $500 for something they can sell for $550.
matty: It's just like... At what point does this become unsustainable? I guess if you've got money behind you. Like it's fine. But you're also fucking over every other person that's been doing this for a very long time.
Henrik S Wilberg: oh is that what happening like a lot of like entry entryists sort of and sort of buying paying the number around
matty: Yeah, I mean a lot of it like Yeah. Like, the the new Jacks that... were you know like they they couldn't tell you anything about what they're actually selling
Conor Fowler: They're green.
matty: Yeah, like they, you know, it goes back to my scene. same point about like influencers in the menswear space. like a lot of these people don't know anything. And so.
matty: Yeah, or apparently have no business sense because paying, you know, paying that Like... x amount to make like Not even. double what your paying for it is just like ludicrous to me.
Henrik S Wilberg: Hmm. I don't know. ah i was so But I'm surprised that the European model now is also... Uh, <unk>s it's a little bit different like the The...
Henrik S Wilberg: The Paris stores have like the high -end stuff. So you have the... You have like the... the serious dealers who have been in the game for quite a bit. They sell... Some, like... normal stuff but they sell like Things that...
Henrik S Wilberg: Like, serious. serious prices like uh like work jackets for like starting at five six hundred dollars and stuff like that you know like the creme de la creme sort of is still of kind of available there although it's not even that it's kind of like the close sort of approximation of that.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um... I went to like Union Fade in Milan, which is like a... Like the most famous ones in all Europe And they did not really have any...
Henrik S Wilberg: And he like... Um, ah what they had. they wouldn't They won't sell you really like salvage. uh levi's stuff for red lines or anything at all even they have like tiny sizes maybe what they had was like they had like a lot of earlier Sort of 20s 30s like hunting and outdoor gear for like an insane amount of money
Conor Fowler: o
Henrik S Wilberg: Or they were selling like... They were saying like... Uh... like classic USN Navy peacoats, like 60s peacoats. for 500 euros.
matty: Jesus Christ! Yes.
Henrik S Wilberg: So that's like...
Conor Fowler: Sounds right to me.
Henrik S Wilberg: that's
matty: Can I supply them with those?
Conor Fowler: Hmm.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yes, I dont know. that's That's crazy, right? I don't know if people like buying them.
matty: I literally, I will not.
Henrik S Wilberg: but but
matty: Like I went picking or on my first like big fall. buying trip last week. saw many 40s, 50s, 60s p -codes. I don't buy them.
matty: Because no one cares. And no one like. It doesn't matter. I could buy one for $5 and I'll sit on it for two years.
Henrik S Wilberg: No, no, those were those were like... I have one, so I didn't... wasn and That's like a... I bought it in l LA for maybe like 30 bucks a few years ago.
matty: right right yeah
Henrik S Wilberg: But it's the corduroy pocket, like late 50s, early 60s one.
matty: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: Ducati One. ah not too shredded, it's great.
matty: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: Uh,
matty: Being in the South, they're kind of unwearable. 99 % of the time.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah. No, but those things that when those things cost that like that amount of money it' like
matty: Right. Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: Uh...
matty: What are we doing?
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah. that's the but but the That's me, you know Milan and Paris, they sell to... designers and they have like the in this vintage is all the rage among people who work for For... for those guys. So that's.
Henrik S Wilberg: and That's what you see in New York as well, is it not? so is you can sort of you can
matty: Yeah. Totally. Ciao.
Henrik S Wilberg: there's a there's a um I don't know with a couple of other. People have tried to sort of... piece together. had some discussions with other people like or a friend zach about that as well like what's actually happening what is the money is it like a closed circuit of celebrity stylists who are buying this
matty: I have no idea.
Henrik S Wilberg: is Is it like the newly minted like Montana billionaire refugees that are buying all this stuff? Um,
Conor Fowler: Well, because you know some motherfucker has like a closet full of... uh every
Henrik S Wilberg: yeah is is is this what Yeah, but I haven't heard of like...
Conor Fowler: permutation of everything.
Henrik S Wilberg: who of some like tech billionaire that's like into into this
Conor Fowler: Well certainly no one that we know about has any swagger at all.
matty: yeah
matty: No.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, this is the thing, I sort of find it hard to believe, you know?
matty: No.
matty: if If there's any... fashion designers and people that want good vintage listening. holler at me because I will undercut every motherfucker you buy from R .A.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: the
Henrik S Wilberg: No, the things that maybe you don't want to because this is the this is my of private theory. I think this is 100 % true for like the... band t -shirt thing uh the like the thousand dollar band t -shirt because this is
matty: you
Henrik S Wilberg: this is uh then you get into territory that That like the watch industry. knows very well.
Conor Fowler: Sure.
Henrik S Wilberg: Namely that. It's a front for money laundering. I think Vin...
Conor Fowler: And like wealth. And like wealth.
Henrik S Wilberg: I think...
Conor Fowler: preservation or what have you like
Henrik S Wilberg: No, no, i've I'm talking, I think... That. Once something becomes... Once you have something that is wearable... Small? Easily resellable anywhere in the world.
Henrik S Wilberg: for something above a few thousand bucks. That. becomes attractive to money launderers.
matty: oh Absolutely.
Henrik S Wilberg: So so it's well known that that's like Part of like designer the designer boom of the last 20 years is people buying
Conor Fowler: Oh yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: it's an interesting book an article about yeah if you that
Conor Fowler: Bags.
Henrik S Wilberg: That a way of laundering of like getting money moving money across the world is is one of the easiest thing to do that is like with Louis Vuitton bags. and
Conor Fowler: Yep.
Henrik S Wilberg: like It doesn't matter if if you buy it for 5 ,000 and sell it for 4 ,000.
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: That's a win. if you're wondering money.
Conor Fowler: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: So that's, I don't know, that that's my my theory that that at least partly.
Conor Fowler: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: Uh...
Conor Fowler: Well... well i had a question i had another question for you
Henrik S Wilberg: And... Vintage. coming.
Conor Fowler: Uh... If you are... American in the kitchen.
Conor Fowler: and you're rushing in the living room, then what are you in the bathroom?
Henrik S Wilberg: That's what I said.
Conor Fowler: Ha ha ha ha ha ha I've been waiting to make that one for a long time uh and here we are everyone european obviously
Henrik S Wilberg: Let's do it.
Conor Fowler: Um... Where do we go from here?
Henrik S Wilberg: No, I mean... ah The thing that... the mistake i've made repeatedly throughout my sort of vintage buying times also is like you underestimate demand right
Conor Fowler: e
Henrik S Wilberg: So you don't, you don't, I thought that it the first time I saw someone like selling. vintage for like north of a hundred dollars like for old clothing like not I'm talking, not talking, like...
Henrik S Wilberg: Like the classic in terms of like old Levi's find has always been worth money But you know once people started selling like the the old like Hercules stuff for over hundreds of dollars, I saw that in 2010. That's the first time I saw it in Chicago.
Henrik S Wilberg: And like Wooden Sleepers came on right after that. and there was there was like a bunch of people who did that like wooden sleep was kind of the last guy standing right
Conor Fowler: mm -hmm
Henrik S Wilberg: he's ah he's done everything right but there were like a Bunch of other guys.
Conor Fowler: Oh yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: I don't know if Maddie knows. ah sort of remembers that time better but there there were like people who did like similar things
matty: oh yeah
Henrik S Wilberg: but who who caught on to that you could dial up the prices for those things. um in a more curated environment. The first guy I saw did that was in Chicago. like 2010.
Henrik S Wilberg: maybe a little bit earlier.
Conor Fowler: That was the boom time that was a double monk strap time I mean that was the time that I was talking about earlier with the rolled up pants
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah. Yeah, that stuff, yeah, I sort of missed. That sort of online menswear thing.
Conor Fowler: Oh yeah. That's right.
Henrik S Wilberg: I was never I was never I never had any any real connection to that before i did
Conor Fowler: Cut. Because man, you would have been so incisive. You would have been like tearing people to shreds on Tumblr. I mean...
Henrik S Wilberg: Nah, I don't know I probably would have been because I was like i was um certainly had like an inclination towards an italian like neapolit style sort of sort of intuitively I would have loved that stuff.
Henrik S Wilberg: I couldn couldn't really afford it, so that's a different... different proposition altogether.
matty: right
Henrik S Wilberg: but um But now that I've... sort of put more funds into it i mean i am guilty of this myself i'm sort of overpaying for certain things A lot. When something comes up, you know it's...
Henrik S Wilberg: It's... unfortunately been proven been proven right every time that if I don't buy it now it will in fact cost a lot more. uh the next time i try so i try not to but That's a recipe for disaster, bud.
Henrik S Wilberg: I try not to get burned on. On. on too many things. I don't think of too many things that I've passed on. but Um... that's the thing you remember right Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: uh But where it will go, I mean... people always expect to crash but i mean i've been wrong about that so many times there's there's a
matty: a
Henrik S Wilberg: an untapped reservoir.
matty: I kind of feel like there has to be.
Henrik S Wilberg: if no but if like if luck if any kind of luxury consumption even switches a tiny bit because i've seen this with wine which is another sort of interest of mine with something something sort of slips over the horizon sort of price wise it does not come back
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: We were just talking, I was just talking about this with Giuseppe.
Henrik S Wilberg: There's no natural. Yeah.
Conor Fowler: and affordable wardrobe, who is a wine... worker.
Henrik S Wilberg: Oh, yeah, that's right.
Conor Fowler: and
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: Yeah, I mean he he said like it's dead the things fucked the crop is over like The wine is not coming back. People are not buying it for what they were.
Henrik S Wilberg: Oh, yeah. but Yeah, but people can't sell it for anything less. It's a bit like sos like a sort of a sham thing going on.
Conor Fowler: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: uh but it's like once once something disappears it disappears so like the the best wines and wines that now costly. Thousands. that you could buy for like...
Henrik S Wilberg: a couple hundred bucks. 20 years ago.
matty: right
Henrik S Wilberg: It's like that much. like And having seen that. when something happens, when something enters. enters the luxury segment. It's not coming back.
Henrik S Wilberg: There's too many people who would do it. If you've seen, Matty will have seen all like all the... what what the With the fancy... a great vintage stores in like Indonesia have.
Henrik S Wilberg: You know?
matty: Oh yeah. Yes.
Henrik S Wilberg: It's like insane. and there's an unlimited number of buyers for that type of stuff. Almost, in terms of... so The question is... What happens then so if I definitely slowed buying but now it's sort of It's become...
Henrik S Wilberg: I buy less things than I pay. way too much money for some things. Um... And that's the way it's going.
matty: Yeah, the food chain aspect. of it has gotten
Henrik S Wilberg: That's where it's going. i come Yeah.
matty: Like I, you know, I told my. best friend eleanor over when we were picking last week like A lot of my lot of times I'm still stuck in like... pre -pandemic pricing But that's also because I'm a cheap motherfucker.
matty: And like, I don't pay a lot for most things.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
matty: but It... you know like Part of our goal has always been to be accessible.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
matty: Like I've got you know, $15, $20 t -shirts. Like, I don't really think a basic ass... Vintage t -shirt is worth more than twenty to thirty dollars And then you see people like.
matty: trying to sell that for 50 or 60 and i'm just like
Henrik S Wilberg: You know. But isn't like the Target t -shirt 30 bucks now?
matty: Yeah, probably Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: It is. i mean says so
matty: Yeah, I mean but a lot of times my um my basis is like you know, a dollar a year. for like basic shit. And that you know that sometimes doesn't work out.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
matty: But... I don't know. it's ah It's an interesting place to be. as someone that has lived on this full time for almost a decade.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, you're not gonna do like the Showroom appointment only.
matty: I mean, I've done that I just don't care. Like, I...
Henrik S Wilberg: extremely curated you can only buy it and it's like you you have to spend
matty: Yeah, like, I love selling... So my whole thing with vintage is I love. I love buying things that I... personally think are cool and are worth buying.
matty: and selling them to people that also think they're cool. that's That's the end goal.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, let's say let's say ideal, but that's like...
matty: Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, like I. I've branched out some, but if I think it's worth it for me... then Cool. But I'm also like.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
matty: you know, I'm not paying like 90 % of the retail price to sell it for the retail price. So. I don't know.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: right
matty: I feel like that's got to end at some point.
Henrik S Wilberg: I just feel like when I talk to vintage people that they're they're like, they do miss the...
matty: It has to.
Henrik S Wilberg: the older days where they were more like... conversations and discoveries.
matty: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: i know to them
matty: Yeah, I... And that's why.
Henrik S Wilberg: and he wasn't as mercenary and as and it's like So...
matty: Right, right. i'm not I'm not trying to be Instagram cool. I don't give a shit. Like if you like me, cool. If you don't, cool. Whatever. If you like what I'm selling, cool. If you don't. Cool. I don't give a fuck.
matty: I just want to like. sell cool things to cool people.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: Hear hear.
Henrik S Wilberg: I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's great. I do wonder, but it's like... ah uh that ends up with like the all those great record stores in the 90s that don't exist anymore that didn't have that model And now you do have to kind of...
matty: right right
Henrik S Wilberg: Um... But yeah, there is like a kind of... a spirit that has sort of... Left the the scene a little bit. I do wonder if it's gonna come back in a certain sense.
Henrik S Wilberg: You know what I miss?
matty: I think that... like
Henrik S Wilberg: I miss like the... What I miss, and I wrote a little sort of Elegy for those? Those like what I call like the mid vintage store.
matty: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: which i which i used to be like my bread and butter before. Before like... even before like second and third tier cities had curated vintage stores like they do now they had they would have this sort of...
Henrik S Wilberg: omnibus vintage stores that would have. a lot of horrible things but also would have like some truly great stuff
matty: Totally. totally
Henrik S Wilberg: And that would be the way to source. And that's what. Like... That was... Like Denver would have like seven of these stores or any town would have.
Henrik S Wilberg: have a bunch of them and they were usually Um, Ran by. had usually been around for a long time and were ran by people. who are like a little bit older.
Henrik S Wilberg: And that's it. and some people transitioned from like the next it's interesting so some people try to to sort of switch it up a little i remember some great stuff in places in minneapolis for instance that that work that way.
Henrik S Wilberg: where you could what i found a lot of Maybe not the greatest greatest greatest stuff that you could find reliably good things.
matty: Oh for sure. Like Land of the Lost in Chicago was always one of my favorites to go to.
Henrik S Wilberg: And I miss you.
Henrik S Wilberg: Which one, sorry?
matty: The name of the lost? It was...
Henrik S Wilberg: I love it before my turn, really.
matty: ah Yeah, it was like I went there like 2008 to 2010. because I was in Chicago a good bit.
Henrik S Wilberg: Wow.
matty: but like ah that store was awesome. And it was like, It was just a, it wasn't a curated. vintage store, but it was just like... a store that had a bunch of Cool old shit.
matty: no matter what that was. like some of it was better than others but like
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
matty: You know. It was just like a ah staple. uh And.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, like vintage markets. I remember Chicago had like this weekend vintage markets where... or sellers or hunt and gather. these papers where sellers sellers would would bring stuff and they would be would be um actually cheap vintage that he could sort of fill fill your water up with that's sort of my what's my staple for a long time before i before I sort of had the money to buy anything in like three digits.
Henrik S Wilberg: stuff. and
matty: Yeah, total
Henrik S Wilberg: You would never pay more than $20 for anything.
matty: yet.
Henrik S Wilberg: And it would be reliably good stuff.
matty: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: It wouldn't be like... I mean, if you were lucky, maybe. but it wouldn't be like the the the stuff that people Did people... and tell their war stories about but it would it was like great
matty: right
Henrik S Wilberg: a great thing, you know. uh and that has that has gone away i guess i mean some of those
matty: 100%.
matty: In a lot of places, yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: force down.
matty: Atlanta is still very much like that. Thankfully. Bye. We have a a good market scene. but it's not like you know I'm not going to take a fucking rare pair of anything.
matty: Or a rare. piece to any of these markets. because no one cares. Bye bye.
Conor Fowler: Hmm.
matty: You can find cool shit for like 20 to 40 bucks. and or maybe a little bit more.
Henrik S Wilberg: And he will actually be old.
matty: And it'll actually be old.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
matty: um you know like
Henrik S Wilberg: Man, that's not bad.
matty: there's There's plenty of 80s and 90s. myself and others, but there's cool stuff. no matter what. and you know
Henrik S Wilberg: I mean, that is that is kind of... like the backbone of sort of a lot of that stuff i still Still have I still have stuff that I found on in these like stores and like Fargo or...
matty: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: Or what else?
matty: right
Henrik S Wilberg: and yeah it's like Kansas City or something for a long, long time ago. Um, And... But now I guess my buying a shift is in Europe. It's different run
matty: right
Henrik S Wilberg: um I have bought some stuff from like... eBay in the UK. Sometimes... proxy by From from like people I used to know in stores I used to.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah. used to buy from in the in the us so there's still a few of those so still hang on on Etsy whatever whatever for for whatever reason.
Conor Fowler: Hmm.
Henrik S Wilberg: Just haven't taken that stuff down yet. some of those things uh But there are some vintage drawers here. Um...
Henrik S Wilberg: as well that somehow source and this source like some different some some different things like more like european stuff but sometimes some american stuff as well will show up.
Henrik S Wilberg: you can learn a little bit more about how like American denim came to Europe. kind of with the franchise model started with like a guy buying 50 ,000 pairs of Levi's and just putting them on a plane and going to the France. That was how Levi's first arrived in Europe.
Henrik S Wilberg: He bought it cash, 50 ,000 pairs.
matty: wow
Henrik S Wilberg: In 65, I think, 66.
Conor Fowler: And that I'm sure today would be worth like $1 trillion.
matty: Yeah, I was gonna say.
Conor Fowler: Thank you.
matty: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: Was it is it that also that book? ah Unlike you. um just how much Levi's was actually made. in the 60s and 70s is actually like the hundreds of millions.
matty: 100%.
Henrik S Wilberg: so it's like uh but of course it got worn but it's like it isn't it isn't rare by any means so people are Yeah. But... ah but also that like they had franchise models the levi's wouldn't Um,
Henrik S Wilberg: Um... uh would have one agent here and there and then lee's would move in in another country so It would be like. So Norway, for instance, was a Li country.
Henrik S Wilberg: before it's a lead until until It wasn't until the 80s that Levi's was imported.
matty: oh wow
Henrik S Wilberg: had their own mechanism. whereas Whereas Sweden was was was Levi's. So you had to go... the crossbow so different so basically levi's wouldn't go into a country if lee If Lee's or Wrangler already had agents there, they would...
Henrik S Wilberg: because they couldn't produce enough. right
matty: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um...
matty: I mean, it's very similar to how...
Conor Fowler: hu
Henrik S Wilberg: they They would have to pick. Yeah.
matty: Like... Like, people people never understand how regional... a lot of clothing was until post -war.
Henrik S Wilberg: With the...
matty: You know like wrangler was southern They were in the South. Like... lee was midwestern they were in the midwest levi's was west coast they were you know colorado wyoming over Like it's just. It's a very... and like There's a lot of nuance. to old American clothes that most people.
matty: don't even give a fuck about. thinking about or figuring out.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, the distribution was... it was Uh... There's probably only like Sears or JCPenney that had the National.
matty: Right. Well, like Sears, Penny's, Ward's.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah. and You can get it everywhere.
matty: Um, you know, like they. and a lot of their you know a lot of their clothing was made in the same places but branded differently.
matty: You know. I don't know. These are the the things that I think about a lot with vintage American shit.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, I think it's... It's... With European, sort of the European... I mean, I have some like family history with these people who... uh i didn't know the the the first importer for levi's i know he again he's a friend of the family but know who it is who was like the lead missing porter
Conor Fowler: Hmm.
matty: Right, right.
Henrik S Wilberg: um Yeah. And that's... That was a... Big deal.
matty: Totally.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um, and i mentioned this little in the new york times thing as well this sort of that relationship to clothing when it was this type of grail -like quality of just getting any like foreign -made clothing in europe and that was It was not an easy thing to do. you would And... It cost a lot of money, but also it was...
Henrik S Wilberg: and you know, the pinnacle of what you could have. and um There's some great stories about this. there's a good story about the the East German state. Uh...
Henrik S Wilberg: Obtaining Levi's original Levi's. like sending agents to obtain american genes and then
matty: oh wow
Henrik S Wilberg: they they They could only really do that once. so they They bought a million.
Conor Fowler: I thought they only liked white jeans.
matty: um
Henrik S Wilberg: No, no, the East German comm so the the Communist Party of East Germany. bought a million pairs of Levi's.
matty: wow
Conor Fowler: Jesus, wow
Henrik S Wilberg: Um... This would have been in the 70s. And they sold them in like two days. In the store.
matty: Yeah, I heard ah there was a really good radio show on... one of the local college stations. georgia tech's wrdk a couple months ago that i heard and it was about like like American underground music and rock music being like smuggled into the USSR.
matty: And it was something I'd never thought about. But... It really did like... you know, kind of kind of
matty: inspire an entire like kind of punky garage rock. scene of Soviet music and the like you know 60s to the 80s And I think the first.
matty: um I can't remember what it was, but the first thing. American rock music that was got. like available in Russia. ah or and in the USSR at that point.
matty: wasn't like. 1961. So I'm like. Not soon after the advent of it.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, was so I mean... this Yeah, I know a little bit about that sort of... How the... how the different uh it was allowed in that it was banned then it came back and so on is it was a
matty: Yeah, right, right. Exactly, exactly.
Henrik S Wilberg: sort of a complex sort of back and forth.
matty: Yeah, yeah
Henrik S Wilberg: And the jeans was just like a procurement problem because they want it was like they knew there was a demand for it. and you have like the state actually going out and And thank you. finessing theirs. budget to buy Levi's.
matty: So fucking wild.
Henrik S Wilberg: um And they bought a million?
matty: but
Henrik S Wilberg: middle it was and Yeah, I wonder if any of those are sort of in in in existence, but they people people just pour them to shreds immediately, I guess.
matty: A million pairs.
Henrik S Wilberg: And that's how it how it went.
matty: Yeah. it's i don't want to think about that Unfortunately. but
Conor Fowler: Ho, ho.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah. ah But I mean, there's... um Um. There is a...
Henrik S Wilberg: a sort of movement where Uh... different european countries or discover a little bit more of their own winters the french are sort of in the in the sort of the the sort of headlining this with with their own workwear and and traditions that are that have become like a premium item you can see it a little bit
matty: Fuck yeah.
matty: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: I mean... italian winter store is a little bit odd because it's still kind of sort of designer 80s, 90s designer. Driven. But...
Henrik S Wilberg: It's nice to see, you know, but
matty: sort
Henrik S Wilberg: A lot of that stuff is just simply unaffordable. i mean there was um So the place is selling like the old Hermes bags in Paris. was there start at like seven thousand dollars something like that
matty: Of course. of course
Conor Fowler: Hmm.
Henrik S Wilberg: I don't think... It's like old equestrian bags. incredible incredible things but you know the like I said those things are Beyond.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um, So... Uh... The only thing I bought in Paris this year was at those markets. was like a pair of a pair of chaps that was pretty great like french writing they're amazing that i that i got on there for put them on there that does like the the the purchase of this year
Conor Fowler: Yeah, I saw those.
Henrik S Wilberg: Last year, I found like a hunting jacket that I wore, like a corduroy hunting jacket. Those are becoming... the next thing in like French. They've done with the workwear, like the French hunting gear is now the...
matty: Oh gotcha.
Henrik S Wilberg: It's now all the rage over there. there'll be Precious little of that in the US, I guess. But you you see it on the... big vintage pages. and in France for that.
matty: Oh totally.
Henrik S Wilberg: The question.
matty: Ciao.
Henrik S Wilberg: The question is whether some German stuff will... come online because that's there's a lot of like german hunting and outdoor stuff from from for the last couple of decades that could. Maybe move into this category, but I don't know it's a It's not so I don't know. I'm a little sort of despondent I guess like you guys about it where where this is setting but There's plenty of good stuff to wear in the...
Henrik S Wilberg: In the meantime, I think. lemon juice <unk>s Sort of at a spot where you just... have. This was maybe part of the problem. but why you have to spend more is once you reach a certain level If you want to... do anything.
Henrik S Wilberg: It will... The only upgrade that's available is something that's quite... stratospheric like If you collect vinyl, you know what I'm talking about. you feel It's gonna it's goingnna be, if you want.
Conor Fowler: right
Henrik S Wilberg: if you want that thing. but I don't really have. too much. Okay. too much of that. and Um,
Henrik S Wilberg: I don't know The end of history is... It's just cooked. What else is there to say?
matty: ah
Henrik S Wilberg: It's just... Ralph Worship Forever. That's what we're going to do.
matty: always but always. This has been a very heavy episode. and That's.
Henrik S Wilberg: I don't know, but I got a question for you the Ralph stuff.
matty: That's great.
Henrik S Wilberg: I promised I'd squeeze this in, like a question for you guys.
Conor Fowler: Dun dun dun!
matty: Of course. Yes.
Henrik S Wilberg: a But Ralph. So do you think Ralph voted for Trump one two or three times?
Conor Fowler: Right. No shit.
Henrik S Wilberg: What do you think?
matty: I'm going to say three.
Conor Fowler: Yeah, I would say 3 -2.
Henrik S Wilberg: You think three? You think three?
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
matty: ah Maybe...
Henrik S Wilberg: I'm gonna say two. I'm gonna say two. but i say ah I don't think I did.
matty: Okay, wait, okay. So the the only... reason I can think of. for not doing three. Actually, no.
matty: I don't have a response to that. Why do you think two?
Conor Fowler: Yeah, he's a billionaire. he's a billionaire
matty: Here's about it.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, but I still think it didn't do it in 2016.
matty: Okay, I'll give you that Yeah.
Conor Fowler: The first time you think he didn't? I don't know. I think all these people are so craven that it's like, whatever, you know, can I can I use children to make my shit?
Henrik S Wilberg: actually
Henrik S Wilberg: No, just about that, but just about that.
Conor Fowler: Will you allow me to use children to make my shit?
Henrik S Wilberg: political sort of the... the Um... It's sort of interesting I think. that sort of... part part of the brilliance maybe of Ralph too that have That giraffe sort of escaped. the Maws of Magon.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um,
Conor Fowler: Man.
Henrik S Wilberg: and that that's sort of been great to sort of
Conor Fowler: Great writer.
Henrik S Wilberg: to sort of maneuver himself around i mean why would he has never been political in that sense but in terms of what he's done is definitely
Conor Fowler: well i would say it's all political right like doing the olympics uniforms that's political
Henrik S Wilberg: lives completely.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, but you can always you can always get that as this as an extension of the of the fantasy you know Although it would be very funny if Ralph was like hardcore MAGA, that would be funny.
Conor Fowler: I guess.
matty: i So...
Henrik S Wilberg: Like privately.
matty: Yeah. that's
Henrik S Wilberg: That would be funny.
matty: I also like... I could see him not. Being Matt. Simply because the the corporate Democrats are not all that similar as far as like business shickos.
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
matty: So he may have voted, you know for fucking Hillary. And Biden. and Hear us. like I could also see that being a possibility.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah. Yeah, it's possible.
matty: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: It's all loser shit.
Henrik S Wilberg: and
matty: It's always the shit like there's you know, like You're a billionaire. You're not going to face any consequences. for being a billionaire.
Conor Fowler: But he's not in the Epstein files as far as we know.
matty: Okay, cool. Cool. Yeah.
Conor Fowler: And that's a win.
Henrik S Wilberg: That is the thing that is really important.
Conor Fowler: That's a win for Uncle Ralph.
matty: Yeah, and and he... i Mike. a I was going to say he could or could not be a Zionist, and he probably is, but...
Conor Fowler: Yeah, that's a hard question.
matty: Yeah. that That is a very hard question.
Conor Fowler: I mean...
matty: ah that I don't
Conor Fowler: Sigh.
matty: I don't know if anyone is able to answer. Maybe RL Grails.
Conor Fowler: I wonder.
matty: Bye. Yeah, Grails do some fucking research on our our Uncle Ralph.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, I think I'm gonna be too much of a
matty: Um...
Henrik S Wilberg: paper trail on that i think i mean i have ah a inclination that would be more speculation but i think i the Done. But it just goes to where we started, like the...
Henrik S Wilberg: The... sort of quintessential American -ness and how it's how it can be. uh sort of maintained that's like the the ralph's excel story i sort of has to retain the sort of
matty: right
Henrik S Wilberg: Um... allegiance to the that type of fantasy to sustain that type of fantasy that was always Ralph's great. success, the one that People like... Fran Leibovitz hated him for.
matty: right
Henrik S Wilberg: was to have sort of usurped the... The Wasp. ideal and Then sold it back to the same people basically kind of made them forget themselves Um...
Henrik S Wilberg: and sort of as the great sort of Um... Um... yeah the great usurper of of the throne of american style that he that he was sort of not possibly entitled to. That he kept it.
Henrik S Wilberg: And that because, precisely because Yeah. NYT didn't want me to put this in the article basically that this is basically the tonic the tonic of Basically...
Henrik S Wilberg: when America had the need of having America sold back to itself, sort of post -Vietnam. Yeah. that that was like ralph real success
matty: you
Conor Fowler: Oh my god, and the Times didn't want to engage with that?
Henrik S Wilberg: resurrect the planet.
Conor Fowler: What a surprise.
Henrik S Wilberg: no they wanted to They didn't understand it. because they They didn't think, is it all just like... Dress up. I mean like the senior or editors that didn't didn't really take that part seriously, right?
Henrik S Wilberg: But that that was the idea. that Ralph Uh... was sort of the last person who could do that or basically who was able to in a moment of crisis Um,
Henrik S Wilberg: ah make sort of american Americana a desirable thing again. sort of and sort of join it with like the 80s. Um... ah Reagan era.
Henrik S Wilberg: Uh... Boom as well. Hmm. That was sort of the the key to Ralph's sort of ascendancy. was to sort of this amalgamation of of nostalgia and...
Henrik S Wilberg: sort of supercharged 80s yuppie culture.
matty: i mean
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
matty: If we're being... completely honest. Polo and everything Ralph has done is the first Americana. Sorry, it's the first Heritage Ranch.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yes, the very idea of Americana like this this idea of
matty: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: of ah um, of that being like a... Um... Something that can be... Um, that can be sold back to um not just as like an export thing to europe which was the way mike and my uncle loved Westerns and everything about America, even though he was a hardcore Maoist in the 70s.
Henrik S Wilberg: you that was that was possible to do.
Conor Fowler: Yeah, which i read in that which I read in that article.
Henrik S Wilberg: I'm not.
Conor Fowler: I was like, damn!
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: ha ha
matty: I mean...
Henrik S Wilberg: but it's like it's like this's like the the the pull of American culture was so strong. that that nothing could escape it. But Americans...
matty: hey Hey man. I'm an an anarchist and I loved the two Top Gun movies. I know they're propaganda.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah. Yeah, exactly that was that was part of the of the thing and even Ralph could
matty: but
Henrik S Wilberg: no one did better at Ralph than incorporating like flight jackets like into that particular
matty: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: idea I don't know if that, you know, how exactly the chronology of that worked out. But this idea of of selling american everything from American military to cowboys and stuff. and and his own.
Henrik S Wilberg: And it's very enlightening to see like his own sort of. take on authenticity of that and this is This is just his own sort of Hollywood fantasy of what.
Henrik S Wilberg: America is.
matty: Totally.
Henrik S Wilberg: it was never anything else and the fantasy is the primary mode of course of of those things but
matty: Totally.
matty: Yeah, I mean, it's it's so quintessentially American.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, but the but the the ability to... to repackage that for Americans themselves. That's the mystery or the sort of like the...
Henrik S Wilberg: the great thing um that that at that very moment he could he could do that. um And it, and it. if you look at the the next round of that.
Henrik S Wilberg: which was like post 9 -11 war on terror was like the other sort of collapse of american self -assuredness where it sort of threatened to be either this sort of jingoistic
Conor Fowler: hit
Henrik S Wilberg: Um... Um... Uh... uh world power this sort of american new American century idea of American expansion.
Henrik S Wilberg: or this particular this sort of Sim - not dissimilar to now this sort of shame and of being american sort of re -enter. And then there was, like, post -9 -11, there was this resurgence of Americana again. There was a host of films.
Henrik S Wilberg: I think the... most iconic piece of that is probably like Brokeback Mountain or something like that like this type of Return of Americana circa 2004, 5, 6.
matty: but also featuring maybe the first.
Henrik S Wilberg: There's a lot of that.
matty: widespread gay love story.
matty: At least that I can think of.
Henrik S Wilberg: Well, you haven't...
Conor Fowler: I think that's right.
Henrik S Wilberg: I haven't seen Red River.
matty: I've never seen Red River.
Henrik S Wilberg: The great Montgomery one.
matty: Oh, I mean, okay, so and I know the history.
Henrik S Wilberg: is great like is with The gayest.
matty: Of a lot of the... the actors that we...
Henrik S Wilberg: That was an incredible film.
matty: you know, no one loving the stuff.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah. No, no, yeah. but but it's it's true oh there's other i mean
matty: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: There's a... Um... Uh... but the But it's true. That was a... a sort of a moment, like the the only way that American patriotism could sort of survive.
Henrik S Wilberg: was in this sort of... Um, This has almost survived until this day, but i mean because it was kind of annoying at the time. Uh, But that was sort of the... the sort of the The...
Henrik S Wilberg: the recharging of like American heartland as like the true soul of America, right? this type there was a there was there was like a kind of widespread search for for for that around that time.
Henrik S Wilberg: And it had like an amazing resonance, like I don't know. uh just the book itself not just before the movie even like the the book Brokeback Mountain, like the one that came out of it. Bye.
Henrik S Wilberg: Like Annie Pruels, right? That was... There was much of that. So there was an edit. But it wasn't it was still like at a lower level than what what Ralph could do.
Conor Fowler: e
Henrik S Wilberg: this idea of So one more time, you could go back to the well. for for like the American the renewal of the American. Um,
Henrik S Wilberg: Americana sort of as a style. I wonder what the... The... The process is now. like where do you go from here now that sort of the Um...
Henrik S Wilberg: Because what's sort of remarkable about... both the The... like you said the the tech overlords and there's like the MAGA political movement.
Henrik S Wilberg: is how swagless both of them are this is an incredible
matty: oh god
Conor Fowler: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: And or not just swag, this that' that's kind of forgivable for politicians, but also how unconnected it is to American style. it doesn't have There's nothing that that that connects.
Henrik S Wilberg: these guys to... to the classic American style that they pretend to be carrying a torch for literally. in a sense and so so what is and the same with the the tech giants as well they seem to be a kind of American mastery of the world that doesn't come with any style whatsoever or kind of like an anti -style.
Henrik S Wilberg: that isn't The... that doesn't have anything... left to offer the world. This is what I mean by from the death of American cool. is that american power And you can think of it what it whatever you want.
Henrik S Wilberg: like My opinion is that it gave you... You can hear like classic Sinatra and you can sort of hear American power. It's it's it's there and you kind of it's kind of irresistible. I mean, it doesn't, I mean.
Henrik S Wilberg: you can say what you want about the atrocities committed. and the cold war or whatever but It is what it is. Um, But...
Henrik S Wilberg: It came with... The soft power of cool. There's always a company buy it. sometimes like in the vietnam post vietnam era there was like the tension between american cool and american prestige an American power.
Henrik S Wilberg: but they were always coupled in a very interesting way. and Americans always had their own struggle with how to deal with that. as we just sort of went through with sort of the Ralph story. but now when my take is that sort of the the twin sort of evils of MAGA.
Henrik S Wilberg: and uh the techno the sort of the technology. takeover of the American economy. is that ah that dissociation is complete. Style is something completely external to the American.
Henrik S Wilberg: life, both economic Power. there's There's just nothing. Um... Um... There's no package for it whatsoever.
Henrik S Wilberg: So what happens is that vintage becomes the only outlet for this. Which is why it there's like something absurd like the new Top Gun Maverick, which is sort of...
Conor Fowler: Hmm.
Henrik S Wilberg: and you reenact You reenact the...
matty: but
Henrik S Wilberg: but was already like an anachronism when the original Top Gun came out.
matty: oh yeah 100%.
Henrik S Wilberg: No American fighter pilot had been in a dogfight for about 20 years when that movie came out.
matty: Right, right.
Henrik S Wilberg: And there there was one in the 40 years from between the two Top Gun movies. so this is like a form of military that doesn't exist anymore or hasn't existed for like 40 years.
matty: totally So.
Henrik S Wilberg: and it's still being sort of rehashed as the only sort of horizon of Love. the only way Americans could look cool is to sort of go back.
matty: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: and be completely stuck in time like Tom Cruise. in somehow hasn't been promoted in 40 years. What happened then?
matty: ah
Henrik S Wilberg: I think. but What do you have to do in the's like the military? will like certainly have, unless he like... I don't know. What happened there?
matty: You know, I hate myself for loving those movies, but goddamn.
Henrik S Wilberg: Maybe the crew might miss this one. it like No, no, but this's like the ah it's like the the same version of the Odyssey. i like that you just The goal is to be suspended in time.
matty: right right
Henrik S Wilberg: you eat the you eat the lotus fruit you you stay you forget and you stay in the same place forever or You leave. and you suffer the consequences.
Henrik S Wilberg: It's the eye of the thief. I haven't seen that as a movie, but I have read the book. so This is but just part of what's going on. right to So, this you can...
Conor Fowler: Travis Scott is not in the...
Henrik S Wilberg: you can
Conor Fowler: in the book
Henrik S Wilberg: like Who is he playing in the movie? I don't know. It's kind of an interesting choice. as
Conor Fowler: He's a bard. He's a bard. And actually, it's so funny.
Henrik S Wilberg: He's one of theingers the I think I'm going to sing it.
Conor Fowler: The Australian guy that I was talking about. ah who wrote his thesis on cucking. Um,
Henrik S Wilberg: Yes. All right.
Conor Fowler: Yes. So he used the word bardic. He said in his Australian accent. ah Travis Scott was not very bardic in this film, which I just thought was wonderful.
Henrik S Wilberg: Well, who knows? the singers as group like The singers in the original Odyssey are also kind of...
Conor Fowler: He's a bad singer.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, yeah, of course they don't know what the toile that they're talking about. or like that It's an interesting phenomenon. But yeah, but the but vintage is has become like a symptom It's kind of the the end.
Henrik S Wilberg: Uh...
matty: right
Henrik S Wilberg: the energy's even just become like a symptom for stuff for like a larger malaise On the one hand, it's like a profitable. sort of upwardly mobile industry, I guess that has sort of rejuvenated.
Henrik S Wilberg: a lot of other points of culture Um, But it's in, it's just kind of suspended.
Henrik S Wilberg: suspended animation in a sense that it's we don't know If it's dead or alive, is it? Is it just the beginning of a new appreciation of...
Henrik S Wilberg: the historicity of clothing or is it basically the last grasp you know of
matty: right
Henrik S Wilberg: ah the cling to the last raft of sort of of Americana that we can... that that we can have and then sort of slowly that becoming the preserve of of the wealthy, like everything else, of value.
Henrik S Wilberg: that sort of slips away that way. And I'm feeling it. We are. Stuck. In this way, but there could be I mean It would be like something like...
Henrik S Wilberg: like a massive preservation work will will happen sort of culturally.
matty: I hope so.
Henrik S Wilberg: It's unlikely, but it could, but in terms of could...
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
matty: Right, right. i
Henrik S Wilberg: There is a world in which that's possible, that we do in fact resurrect. like a or at least more likely that a few of us will would become like the
Conor Fowler: who is the Who is the Jesus Christ of this new moment?
Henrik S Wilberg: It would be curious.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, but...
Conor Fowler: It's ah what is the name of that brand that we always talk shit about? I can't even remember.
matty: Buck Mason.
Conor Fowler: Buck Mason. Buck Mason is Jesus Christ, everyone.
Henrik S Wilberg: I think I saw, I saw that I met the Buck Mason CEO. This is how that ends.
Conor Fowler: Wow.
Henrik S Wilberg: In Paris, he was at the Anatomica store.
Conor Fowler: Interesting.
matty: was Was he a douchebag?
Henrik S Wilberg: We'll cut. Well... The funny thing is that... i I don't know. who the CEO of Burma is and is or what he looks like. But I went to the store and there was this guy and I said, I bet that's the CEO of Buck Maison.
matty: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: And that's what he looked like.
matty: ha
Conor Fowler: He just had that.
Henrik S Wilberg: Or at least like the...
Conor Fowler: Buck Mason.
Henrik S Wilberg: he was reading Yeah, he was wearing like a... He was wearing like an open row. with the tea he looked all right i mean it's like but he looked like he looked like kind of like like glowy Californian in the way that no one in France looks like, you know?
matty: Right, right.
Conor Fowler: that's how They are Californian, right?
matty: Yeah, they're missing out.
Henrik S Wilberg: must be i mean i mean i just have like a personal remember i don't know it's I'm sure... I don't really have a strong opinion about about what they're doing but they are like doing collaborations with like serious stuff like one of the most that anatomical that French.
Henrik S Wilberg: incredibly exclusive. sort of Japanese -French boutique in in Paris that have, you know... No.
Henrik S Wilberg: If you look it up, you can see what they do. But they're like a mainstay. if they do like They're the only ones who like do their own Aldens. you know they do the modified last like for all their shoes and they do their own
Conor Fowler: Mm -hmm.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um, and i don't know it's they have some good stuff it's a great place to Sort of. hang out and talk to people but it's It's... a it's interesting like the french menswear scene and it's Because it's so like...
Henrik S Wilberg: Uh... Close to the American they have sort of absorbed all the American cool the way they can, but they still sort of reserve their own. It's kind of interesting.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um...
matty: I can see that.
Henrik S Wilberg: They do like their launch parties in New York and stuff, but they still think it's it's It's interesting. uh to see and they are Because they're... they're um being french and all that they had they're like They're more reticent about the...
Henrik S Wilberg: social media stuff, so they don't do a lot of things. like all their stuff is print
matty: That.
Henrik S Wilberg: They don't put it on.
matty: That sounds...
Henrik S Wilberg: I guess they can buy the PDF.
matty: Honestly, that's awesome.
Henrik S Wilberg: yeah so that you can print them but they've also succeeded in like spreading their becoming the tastemakers like the etiquettes
matty: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: folks they like becoming like the tastemakers both on the men's and women's side and that sort of... what's downstream from them in terms of stores is All very, very good. You know?
Henrik S Wilberg: Um... And... nicely relaxed. and I mean, it's not... relaxed is not really the Parisian way, but it's like very... focused. It's nice. It's hard not to like.
Henrik S Wilberg: so and they they combine and they're very nicely situated because they can both navigate the ultra luxury Like, they're like... the they like purveyors of vintage Hermes stuff.
Henrik S Wilberg: because that's like freshness
Conor Fowler: All the really icky stuff.
Henrik S Wilberg: ah no no that's French craftsmanship like the sort of because her mess is interesting because they're like they're also not doing like the louis vuitton thing of Hermes won't let you buy shit. Amen.
Conor Fowler: no well I mean the LVMH thing is like
Henrik S Wilberg: you'll have to earn it.
matty: bret
Conor Fowler: Okay. is like a thing right like that's like a conglomerate
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, it's like that's ah
Conor Fowler: like a gang.
Henrik S Wilberg: They're the ones who sort of... who bought up all the fashion houses and sort of turned them into what they are now.
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: They kind of invented luxury.
matty: Demon looks out.
Henrik S Wilberg: in that
Conor Fowler: I watched. I watched this documentary that had like all of the guys in it. Like, uh, uh, Alexander McQueen and all of those designers that were prominent like in the early 2000s i guess and like the way that they basically were all destroyed by like capitalism Um...
Conor Fowler: I mean, obviously we know what happened to ah McQueen, but like the whole idea of. ah The whole idea of luxury was. kind of invented again by that.
Conor Fowler: whole bag scene.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, it was it was an attempt to basically... um Again, if you look at the volume, like if you go back to... 2000 or even like 1998 like what was actually the volume of like Gucci and Louis Vuitton and all that stuff look at what they made or how much they sold It's a fraction of what it is now. room And to me how do how do they how do they scale that? They did it by...
Henrik S Wilberg: exploiting those designs to death.
matty: Right. right
Henrik S Wilberg: Fuck them over big time. So they became... That's... sort of a similar story, I guess, to the vintage.
Conor Fowler: Damn, we can't get out we can't get out of the fucking doldrums. but
Henrik S Wilberg: No, but there is... I'm always brought back to this, like, the... the that if you want to understand what's happening sort of in your life but also what's happening to like stuff like vintage or what's happening to restaurants what's happening to universities so So the form of...
Henrik S Wilberg: the change it's not just capitalism that's a lazy way to talk say about right it's like it's a specific change
Conor Fowler: Yeah, of course
Henrik S Wilberg: that happened at this at a very specific time. that allowed these things to happen. And if you don't understand that, you you fall into the trap of saying, okay. Um,
Henrik S Wilberg: uh there are still like independent punk bands right now or something but that's true there are kids in basements doing the stuff they've want to do, which is good.
Henrik S Wilberg: But what's missing is, of course, the entire infrastructure that made anything. like what we now know possible has been bought up like everything from local radio stations to to the music industry. like you there The changes of that are so profound.
Henrik S Wilberg: that it's not the same thing. The fact that, like I said, universities now and universities for 40 years ago are just. All they have in common is the name, nothing else really.
Henrik S Wilberg: is the same Like what? what like a fashion house like Dior or something is like now. compared to 40 years ago, it's just...
Henrik S Wilberg: The way they work as a business is something that has almost nothing in common. Hmm. they just call them they have designers just like university has professors but it's not the same thing And we just, we have just. and detain the fantasy that we're still in the same world.
matty: Right. Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: um But we're not, we've left that behind because... or everything has been. concentrated. integrated into a supply chain in the way that nothing has ever done before.
Henrik S Wilberg: We're paying dearly for it. There is no... Um, okay there is no monoculture but there is in fact like a monopoly of monopoly of distribution of music right
matty: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: Uh... that is Not inescapable, but... and there will maybe be some sort of reaction to this there probably will be but The form it will take will not be anything like and what we had.
Henrik S Wilberg: was... temporary you know more and more like the the the sort of the the golden age of like pop culture or whatever we they're sort of from 50s to...
Henrik S Wilberg: Around 2000. will be the exception, not the rule. Before that... After that. See. It'll be like the Greek plays or something. It'll be...
matty: right
Henrik S Wilberg: it'll be something that'll be like preserved for a time and we can go back to it and understand it but it won't it won't have a continuity.
Conor Fowler: This feels like Kurtz. In the jungle.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah. yeahops
Conor Fowler: Just like... I don't know what to do.
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: How do we lift it behind in a certain sense?
Conor Fowler: It's good, though.
Henrik S Wilberg: The question is sort of, okay. How do... culture sort of survive in this and this Plenty of things to do. like Vintage clothing isn't going anywhere.
Henrik S Wilberg: but to pretend that it's part of like the the cycle that is before. So, the task is to live up to it, I think. This is my own personal take on it. what he sort of is is Less like self -expression, but...
Henrik S Wilberg: doing justice to what you have. Like the clothes you have.
matty: That's a great quote.
Henrik S Wilberg: Like, yeah, the clothes you have. the music you listen to how do you sort of to to to to live up to that, to none. There's not, I don't. I've never really thought of...
Henrik S Wilberg: Anything? Even from as a licker. thing i've done in like philosophy or anywhere as something less be like an expression. of anything, it's more been like...
Henrik S Wilberg: I'm trying to... hold on to like a point of transmission or a dialogue with something in the past that was meaningful to me at one point and might be for someone else.
Henrik S Wilberg: um That's very different from teaching you about it. It's like keeping that type of flame alive this one It's what's important. True.
matty: total
Henrik S Wilberg: that's why clothing is important i get annoyed when people say like it's just clothes or It's... Yes.
Conor Fowler: Well not on this program.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, it's not that scary. It's not that serious. or Um...
Conor Fowler: Then fucking walk around naked.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, that that there are other Yeah, there are other things. I mean, but there aren't actually that many things that what people do care about, you know. Um, there's some Um...
Henrik S Wilberg: How do you... um make sure because I already know that like And we know. like the the age that we are. it Same for you, Connor, as well. Like, the kind of...
Henrik S Wilberg: trajectory that we took intellectually, culturally, i mean it's that's no longer possible for anybody, even under the best of circumstances. Yeah. Not at any minimum. Maybe it wasn't that great for us either, but it wasn't.
Henrik S Wilberg: You couldn't literally could not repeat the kind of education that I've had. It not it no longer exists.
matty: totally total
Henrik S Wilberg: And. the kind of attention to detail or something that we had when we listened to music when we were 13 and 14 like it's not coming back Um, that kind of importance Yeah, how do we preserve it?
Henrik S Wilberg: Just don't think that another you are This is what I think about when I think about like... uh people think about like being a parent or being like like a dad the sort of the point of fatherhood of being a dad style and this type of People invent they kind of all kinds of weird like faked and fake or real sort of transmissions from their own fathers that they sort of...
Henrik S Wilberg: forcibly insert themselves into like a timeline. No.
Henrik S Wilberg: Uh... And now that we're here... We're supposed to pass that on. I don't know. There's nothing to pass on really. It's like all you have is the the possibility.
Conor Fowler: Right. Can't you fucking look on YouTube, you idiot?
Henrik S Wilberg: no no but you have to like preserve something like preserve something that's like uh Uh... and enjoyment. That is to keep a space open for like a a mind that's still new in this world. is This is a nice thing about children. It's not that they're...
Henrik S Wilberg: Um, sort of, you know ah infinitely full of possibility or whatever but it's just a You do get this chance.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um... that a mind is to be formed and where like where do they where is the space going to come from? and it's a very daunting task how to preserve something for i don't think that might cross my father's mind at all at any point.
Henrik S Wilberg: that that was something that he would... have to I have to enable... or Take care. charge of or custody of. No. he sort of trusted that the world would find a space for the things that were important for both him and me, I guess.
Henrik S Wilberg: But that trust is kind of gone. Yeah. So... where we end up. It's a different question. Um, But...
Henrik S Wilberg: And. I don't know It becomes more neurotic, I think. Also... I don't know. it's a there are Vinyl is one thing, it's happening with books now.
Henrik S Wilberg: in the sense that I can't buy anything new. It's like the physical binding of like a penguin classic or something now is so abhorrent that you can't buy it
Conor Fowler: right
Henrik S Wilberg: So I have to like... If I want like a penguin classic, I have to... Go. online I can find a used bookseller that will sell me the 1985 to 2000 version of the penguin pocket.
Henrik S Wilberg: paperback. Because those are the ones that are... that don't fall apart and actually have a certain cachet and have the right things in it. Uh... It's not good.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um,
Conor Fowler: There we have it.
Henrik S Wilberg: No, but I could
Conor Fowler: have
Henrik S Wilberg: The constant de degradation of everyday life is is not great. And just it to see it... not not only not reversed, but sort of... accelerated at every point it's it's good.
matty: We could do a whole episode on that.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, I like to hold, so I mean... um The hope is dead. Uh, Um... that Things getting worse will basically accelerate the reaction to it.
Henrik S Wilberg: That's like the
matty: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: acceleration is to take on things
Conor Fowler: Liam has, my friend Liam has long been an accelerationist and I think really if you think that we should have a series with dr doom ah himself, we could do that. Just send us an email.
Conor Fowler: We need to know that someone would listen to it.
Henrik S Wilberg: No, I'll do it, but, I mean... Uh, There is a... I don't know if there's hope or anything, but... there's no one who's deluded about it like everyone sort of is openly agreeing on that everything is in fact shit it's getting worse
Conor Fowler: Yep, we're fucked.
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um, That you... that sort of basic functions on your phone or computer that was perfectly uh possible 10 years ago are no longer possible like google
Conor Fowler: Like I have to manually connect my air pods every time
Henrik S Wilberg: What was that? Okay. it was like easy things that oh it was never a problem It doesn't work now.
Conor Fowler: Oh yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: and You can't. It's impossible to... To... Even if you wanted to. to recreate certain things.
Henrik S Wilberg: I don't know. so I don't know. it's But everyone decided that everyone hates it, so... And. The fact that everyone hates even those who use it. Amen.
Henrik S Wilberg: unfortunately there are exceptions When you do have like access to like a... What is like a normal person's mind it can be quite frightening like what people actually do
matty: right right
Henrik S Wilberg: Um, but when confronted with it everyone sort of knows, like every student of mine knows that Heiai is horrific and does incredible damage.
matty: I mean I keep seeing like
Henrik S Wilberg: We just can't stop.
matty: no data center sign like yard signs in the most rural of the southeast and i'm like okay cool
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah. we will move
matty: Like, let's get this bread.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, everyone hates it
Conor Fowler: Well, I think that that's the the like the the overwhelming majority by this point on every issue.
matty: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: is on the right side not the right side i mean the correct side whatever you
matty: Yeah, and not the writer. Yeah, but like... there's it's it's it's becoming the class war. And.
Conor Fowler: Truth has a liberal bias, right, as they say.
matty: i'm I'm cool about that. Right. Right. And I'm cool with this.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
matty: Anyway.
Henrik S Wilberg: I know. I would like to... is it I'm i'm kind of kind of itching to come back to the US, actually.
matty: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: little bit. I hope I can come back this winter. Um...
matty: Come to the South.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
matty: What?
Conor Fowler: I was going to say come to Baltimore.
Henrik S Wilberg: love i love I do like Georgia. I mean, I've been to Atlanta many times.
matty: Hell yeah. Hell yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um,
matty: Well, yeah, I mean, if you want to visit...
Henrik S Wilberg: Although South remains sort of a... Um... Um, There's like a few times I came close to to getting... to getting certain jobs there.
matty: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um,
matty: it's It's a special place.
Henrik S Wilberg: and
matty: Like I spent the last week in. I like. Appalachia. and Tennessee and Kentucky and Man.
Henrik S Wilberg: Amazing place.
matty: It's a it's it's a special thing and I will forever love it Like, I love being from the South. I love being... From Atlanta. and Yeah. If you're ever down here, holler at me.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, i'm a vin I am like a... heartland type of guy i mean part of not really by choice almost like surely i would have taken an academic appointment at like an east coast elite university
matty: Right, right.
Henrik S Wilberg: I don't want to come along. but But I was sort of... My trajectory was otherwise that I think got to. Experience like the depths of the Midwest
matty: Totally.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um, Sal. has...
Conor Fowler: Well, you made Cincinnati look pretty fucking cool. I mean, I feel like that's what people tell me about Baltimore.
matty: Yeah. i mean honest Honestly, like...
Henrik S Wilberg: That's weird.
Conor Fowler: Like, you make Baltimore look really cool, dude.
matty: Cincy, in my experience, has been fun as hell. Bye. uh an upmoval
Henrik S Wilberg: i think it's It's alright. Louisville is great.
matty: Yep.
Henrik S Wilberg: I think Louisville has like a certain depth. to its sort of its connection, especially music -wise, a better music city than Cincinnati is.
matty: Oh totally, totally.
Henrik S Wilberg: So that's sort of how it has that for going for it. and it has like the I've always loved Louisville. Uh... Uh... but Cincinnati too has the sort of the i call it like the sort of the the river the river americas i live in st louis st louis as well this is a kind of a
matty: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um... like the if the cities on the cumberland too is like have that same vibe the this sort of ancient but also Uh... Just like it.
Conor Fowler: Horrible, I mean st. Louis is fucking horrible
Henrik S Wilberg: next topic. St. Louis is horrible but also great in a certain way.
matty: Exactly.
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: Just like everyone else.
matty: Exactly.
Henrik S Wilberg: it's it's it's really It's the most, it's like the, this yeah, certainly. Um...
Conor Fowler: It's like one of the most segregated places on earth definitely
Henrik S Wilberg: It's a broken city in many ways, but it's ah it's so it's certainly where...
Conor Fowler: Oh yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: where... Because like in chicago Chicago is similarly violent, similarly segregated, but you can escape it as simply as you can't. St.
Conor Fowler: No.
Henrik S Wilberg: Louis is just... you
Conor Fowler: That's Ferguson, right?
Henrik S Wilberg: It's inescapable.
Conor Fowler: I mean, that's like the
Henrik S Wilberg: Um... where I lived as well, it was... it was it was But it's still like a... Uh... Hmm. A place where...
Henrik S Wilberg: It was... interesting to live and it's also it's still cheap as hell This is the only place.
matty: total
Henrik S Wilberg: is like this is like meant I remember literally looking up. like where Like, where is actually the... where is actually the the affordable places to live.
Henrik S Wilberg: anymore, back in 2020.
Conor Fowler: baltimore not Baltimore is quickly not an affordable place.
Henrik S Wilberg: Voldemort quickly nods and is like...
Conor Fowler: but
Henrik S Wilberg: What remained was basically yeah uh st louis and memphis like to like violent horrible places but also had as a certain type of racist.
matty: Yep.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah. where you could still...
matty: so
Henrik S Wilberg: you could still live like it's 20 years ago. Um, But yeah the I... it's like a complete convert to that type it's like became american through those Midwestern.
Henrik S Wilberg: trips i've been ever i mean i've been from like marquette to fargo to to To Duluth. to Kansas City or Salinas like West like Western, Kansas. I've been and Spin.
Henrik S Wilberg: It's like that Johnny Cash song, I've Been Everywhere.
Conor Fowler: i've been everywhere man yeah that's a its like ha
Henrik S Wilberg: It went everywhere, man. In this type of... it's pursuit of and I've been in pursuit of vintage.
Conor Fowler: Right. That's what it is.
Henrik S Wilberg: time.
Conor Fowler: I've been everywhere for vintage, man.
matty: yeah Right, right. right that This is why you remain in the provinces.
Conor Fowler: Right
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, true in truth, I think there's a... there is a
Conor Fowler: The vintage is better. That's why we remain in the provinces.
Henrik S Wilberg: The Vintage is better. I mean, it's still... Like some of the stuff that I've seen in places like... rural michigan like upper peninsula like antique malls still had like proper stuff just a few years ago.
matty: oh yeah
Henrik S Wilberg: ah So those are the places that people that people still go, I guess. but um But yeah, because part of it is, of course, yeah yeah part of it is a joke that I was never able to do to remain.
Henrik S Wilberg: in like a big city. But I think truly also... Whoa. at this point in my life also that dude The provinces have the... to have the upper hand now We'll see.
matty: We'll see.
Henrik S Wilberg: Well, but but least at least as as a style philosophy as well as this idea of...
matty: We'll see.
Henrik S Wilberg: of um um of something that's slightly Slightly sidelined. I do i do like this. idea same with i mean scandinavia is also its own So style is not great here I actually beg to differ with a lot of... I'm a big hater of like Nordic...
Henrik S Wilberg: a Nordic style, even like the even even like the Danish, Swedish.
matty: ah
Henrik S Wilberg: the more elegant versions of it.
matty: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um, Copenhagen is like... pretty insufferable now but is it is like genuinely good you gotta also gotta to hand it to them in terms of how good some of it is, but it's also...
Henrik S Wilberg: Um... Um, He doesn't feel... Um... Uh... as as alive as just like what any American city would.
Henrik S Wilberg: feel like. That's my preference now. I'm not sure. s Scandinavia has a certain cool but And... It's not like...
Henrik S Wilberg: It's only like in a like thin layer among certain people and they do it very well. It's like a... There's like um Huh.
Conor Fowler: Elite.
Henrik S Wilberg: like the elite like the varsity The varsity team.
Conor Fowler: Mm hmm. The A -Team, baby!
Henrik S Wilberg: The A -teamed are sort of... ah do the job for everybody else and everything else is sort of... Um... is like culturally speaking pretty pretty rough I'd say. yeah And it's already...
Henrik S Wilberg: Like, Scandinavia used to produce like real outsiders and real mavericks and they haven't really for a long time. I mean, I might go for... for a lot of... art in general.
Conor Fowler: nobody Nobody like the American maverick, John McCain.
Henrik S Wilberg: yes
Henrik S Wilberg: topic you know yeah No, but people like, you know, genuine freaks like Lars von Trier or something like that, you know, these like... Um,
Conor Fowler: Genuine freaks.
Henrik S Wilberg: But...
Conor Fowler: but
Henrik S Wilberg: yeah ja a Genuine freaks.
Conor Fowler: No, for sure.
Henrik S Wilberg: instead of... I'm paralleled.
Conor Fowler: And Lars von Trier is a great example.
Henrik S Wilberg: Hmm? And others as well. I mean, that that's like the big change. since like the decades that I've been away and like The Nordic stuff is a lot.
Henrik S Wilberg: more Narrow. Just a lot more boring, man. stylistically is well known. like norwegians have a couple of things they got theirs they got like the The knitting of the sweater tradition, that's pretty awesome.
Henrik S Wilberg: Um, that everyone still sort of... uh uses like the heritage Sweater patterns and make their own shit and stuff and that's like roofs remained a thing that people wear there.
Henrik S Wilberg: They're knitted ski sweaters for like decades. I'm going to make a little... photo documentary of the of the sweaters that I've encountered. That's like pretty great.
matty: Hell yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: But beyond that, it's like pretty swagless sort of. Sportswear, no? I have the worst kind too. I don't know if they have a...
Conor Fowler: It's not Under Armour, I mean...
Henrik S Wilberg: no no but there's like there's a there's a couple of brands that are like the There's this is kind of swag -less Arc'teryx that we got. which is pretty bad.
Conor Fowler: Yep.
Henrik S Wilberg: Uh, It's worse than Octarix, it's like...
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: And I've seen it. There is a store in New York, I think. Um... But it's all just like... $600 hiking pants.
Conor Fowler: Yeah, I hate all that shit and it's just like all black right?
Henrik S Wilberg: Made in Vietnam. made in vietnam for
Conor Fowler: Yeah Fuck that.
Henrik S Wilberg: Peace. Yeah. It's with weird, right?
Conor Fowler: Or, like, dark gray.
Henrik S Wilberg: It's completely and uncomfortable. Yes, it's it's not great. it's and They have these flagship stores in... in the big cities here and or in the hiking areas.
Conor Fowler: And you can like climb on a rock wall.
Henrik S Wilberg: Hmm.
Conor Fowler: Oh yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: No, I don't know. I'm trying to remember. what it looks like. It's... It's... Very, very disappointing. and that's that's that's what we just wear they kind of wear like the old sweater and that and then
Conor Fowler: but
Henrik S Wilberg: Um, Um... Just like still the access to to things is still Nowhere near what the American America you can get your shit delivered
Conor Fowler: You can buy more shit in America than anywhere else in the world.
Henrik S Wilberg: You can shit. You can buy more shit if you look at me.
Conor Fowler: And I'm a representative of that fact.
Henrik S Wilberg: people have been buying worship again you can recycle them but it's just a lot less i just like the i mean sometimes you can wean yourself off those things that's pretty good but
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: I wouldn't. wouldn't recommend it but whenever i whenever i hear like this sort of style sort of breathless style. reporting of oslo or copenhagen or something i don't know man it's uh It's pretty cooked here too. It was true maybe.
Conor Fowler: It's all whites for the most part, right?
Henrik S Wilberg: a while ago.
Conor Fowler: I mean, it's like all white people.
Henrik S Wilberg: I'd be a little bit surprised. I mean, because... we're Well into... Um... willing to like second third generation of like the earlier migrant waves from the 80s and 90s so The bigger cities are...
Henrik S Wilberg: Um... especially sweden but also denmark and norway pretty Pretty much the same as like Germany or other places as well. It's Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: It's a... That has definitely changed.
Conor Fowler: relatively diverse.
Henrik S Wilberg: It's relatively diverse and that's sort of... bit of a myth that that the Nordic countries are sort of... but that's some sort of explanation for why they remain.
Conor Fowler: hegemon well that is a that is a favorite of the like uh neo -nazi and like idiot yokel confederate
Henrik S Wilberg: what they are so Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, that you have to sort of...
matty: Yeah, true.
Henrik S Wilberg: you you
matty: Sure.
Conor Fowler: kind of like well there's no black people there that's why they have uh a good tax system
matty: Right, right, yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, he would have had health care if it wasn't for immigration type stuff.
Conor Fowler: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, but yeah that's not that's not really the case.
matty: right
Henrik S Wilberg: the case here. But on the other hand, immigration -wise, like Europe is also... Quite. sinister looking as well. I mean, that's also only going to get worse, but... sort of the political situation might be.
Henrik S Wilberg: in some sense. Not in a sort of... welfare sense of words, but in terms of the a in terms of the resistance to
matty: right
Henrik S Wilberg: What's coming? America might be. at least in some places have be in a better state than than some of Europe. I don't know Yeah. I'm not too pessimistic about. People are still in denial over here a little bit about what's what's coming around.
Henrik S Wilberg: and
matty: ah great place to end.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
matty: ah We're, yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, we've been talking for quite a while, but I don't know, we might want to edit a few things out.
matty: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: But so I think we covered some more some of the other...
matty: No, no. Dude, it's been a fucking blast.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, that's the other part.
matty: and like it's been existential. And had a...
Conor Fowler: This is our longest episode ever.
matty: Yeah, and I'm stoked about that.
Henrik S Wilberg: That's bad. That's usually bad.
matty: Honestly.
Henrik S Wilberg: it's benefits Well, we got in the film.
matty: No, no, no.
Conor Fowler: No, I don't think it's bad because almost every podcast.
matty: Bye.
Conor Fowler: Does more than an hour.
matty: Right. right
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah. I mean, everyone does.
matty: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: And like we never we almost never do more than an hour. So I feel like it's like. It's like a different thing.
Henrik S Wilberg: There you go.
matty: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: No, but I do
matty: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: But. I'm still as a... I'm still... Trying to get the... I'm still looking for people to get to get to my sub stack a little bit.
Henrik S Wilberg: it's It's nice to have a new kind of thing to do.
matty: Good.
Conor Fowler: It's well written.
matty: 100%.
Henrik S Wilberg: it's been it's been It's been sort of dormant for a little bit, but there is there is there are a few things coming.
matty: What?
Henrik S Wilberg: Um... That I think. might interest might interest people so some other projects of that kind.
Conor Fowler: Definitely check out the sub stack.
matty: Yeah, well... Tell all of our listeners where to find you on Substack and elsewhere.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yeah, it's... so on some side it's why we remain in the province provinces which is Sort of am my moniker of Instagram as well Instagram. I'm still H Wilbert, but also you can find me through other different spots, but Instagram is...
Henrik S Wilberg: Well. r .i .p to like the old it's cool it's like a
matty: Yeah. RIP. And jump.
Henrik S Wilberg: RIP to that that part, I mean, but who knows? as a combat. No, still. there's still some enjoyable parts people are still the right people are still doing the
matty: Chalo! Ciao!
Henrik S Wilberg: still doing the right things. so
matty: Absolutely.
Henrik S Wilberg: Let's see. but um And...
Henrik S Wilberg: It's funny how stuff like this kind of works. that's a Um...
Henrik S Wilberg: Adds like a gloss of legitimacy to the whole to the whole thing.
matty: and And well worth reading. Watch your act.
Henrik S Wilberg: Yep.
matty: So.
Henrik S Wilberg: well it's it's uh yeah yeah i mean i'm uh i'm testing out a few things there that will be that will be different from other types of writing on uh on uh on style but the next one is also about A little bit about the Odyssey.
Henrik S Wilberg: I guess it's is a little bit about this clothes clothing, the odyssey, and the and of the question of stuff.
Conor Fowler: Ha ha!
matty: ah Nice. Nice.
Henrik S Wilberg: upset. of style has a little bit to do with
matty: Okay.
Henrik S Wilberg: We talk about fathers and sons. That's just what the Odyssey, is of course, is. about.
matty: Right.
Henrik S Wilberg: Trying to...
Henrik S Wilberg: trying to Uh huh. know where the destination is.
matty: all right
Henrik S Wilberg: Once things are all over.
matty: We'll see.
Conor Fowler: Yeah, I was going to say, you don't want to spoil it.
Henrik S Wilberg: Once a disaster has appeared.
matty: Yeah, exactly.
Henrik S Wilberg: Once a disaster has appeared.
matty: And we'll see if this episode comes out before. that piece comes out. So. Anyway.
Henrik S Wilberg: We'll see. All right.
matty: Hey, Rick.
Henrik S Wilberg: All right.
matty: One more time.
Henrik S Wilberg: Thank you guys.
matty: Thank you so much.
Henrik S Wilberg: Thank you.
matty: Um... We are at Apocalypse Studs on Instagram. Apocalypse studs at gmail .com. I am Matty Smith at Rubble's Rogues.
Conor Fowler: And I am Connor Flower. Connor Flower.
Conor Fowler: Bye -bye.
